Publicity Help For a New Holiday

October 24, 2006 1:10 PM

How do I get absurd amount of ethical, reasonably cheap publicity for a new holiday (and by extension) the website that publicizes said holiday? Does anyone have any creative ideas? Internet based is a plus. [more inside]

So me and some friends are starting a holiday. Think of it like Secretary's Day, but less gimmicky and less commercial. There are around 17 million people that are the target population that are celebrated by this holiday, and we're hoping that their family (tens of millions of people) will get them presents and send them cards, etc.

So for the 17 million people who get a new holiday and presents and what not, they all seem very happy about the idea,we just need to get the word out to all of them. [By the way, this happen to be a population where I would guess 95% plus have easy, reliable internet access.]

So are there any good stunts/gimmicks etc. to spread the word about this? Any suggestions must be legal and not bound to get us a ton of bad publicity. Cheap (500 or less) or free is a big plus, although ideas can take a lot of time or work. There don't seem to be any good resources that explain how to create a holiday, but getting publicity seems to be the only important step, and we've love some advice on how to do that.

posted by andoatnp to media & arts (20 comments total)

How about creating fun e-cards celebrating the holiday that can be sent to people? A lot of the people who receive them will send one to someone else, etc. That way it looks less like publicity and more like everyone participating in your holiday.

This kind of thing is sure to take a few years to catch on though, I'd imagine.
posted by hermitosis at 1:24 PM on October 24, 2006

Write some letters to the editors of your local papers explaining your holiday and why it should become a national holiday. If you are from a very small town, you can probably get them to do an entire story.
posted by mikepop at 1:27 PM on October 24, 2006

For your specific holiday, try to get college newspapers to feature stories about college day. From the students, word will travel to the parents, who I'm guessing are the target gift senders.
posted by necessitas at 1:55 PM on October 24, 2006

Get Congress to declare it in a resolution.
posted by grouse at 2:02 PM on October 24, 2006

If it's in New York, try tipping Gawker.com. They get an obscene amount of hits

Pitch yourself to local radio shows
posted by juliarothbort at 2:02 PM on October 24, 2006

Tell Dave Barry about it. It worked for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
posted by MsMolly at 2:22 PM on October 24, 2006

I think it depends on what kind of holiday it is. A couple of years ago, to impress a guy, I tried to start an international version of a sexually-charged British holiday (timed such that we could celebrate it together, natch). I got and still get a fair amount of web traffic about it. The sexual element made sure it was picked up by teens and young adults on Livejournal (see this post for how the Livejournal effect can work to up traffic on a site), and links by a few more prominent bloggers did the rest. You sound like you want this to be even bigger than I did, but if you are going to appeal to Gawker and that blog-crowd it's going to need a hip, ironic hook and even then it may scroll off the front page and be forgotten. To really catch on you need grassroots appeal; the e-cards might work, and try LJ icons, buttons, etc.
posted by amber_dale at 2:23 PM on October 24, 2006

I hate to say it, but with the way MySpace is growing - you could create a page for your holiday and get it some friends.
posted by youngergirl44 at 2:38 PM on October 24, 2006

Boo - my link was bad. Try this one: MySpace
posted by youngergirl44 at 2:39 PM on October 24, 2006

payperpost.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 3:49 PM on October 24, 2006

Related to grouse's suggestion, in a show to see how far a buck could go in DC, Micheal Moore spent what $30? $50? (I forget) on a lobbyist and for that money successfully got congress to declare a date national [something] day. I imagine the video cameras helped though :)

But I imagine grassroots, and popular appeal such as Dave Barry, is more effective than some meaningless declaration from congress :)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:55 PM on October 24, 2006

If it's "less gimmicky and less commercial", then why not just tell us what it is? Are you protecting your idea and the potential ad revenue?

I don't mean to be snarky, but if the idea is good, telling us here won't do any harm and we're just as likely to spread the word as anyone else in the world, to make this a grassroots effort to get it noticed.
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:16 PM on October 24, 2006

kickstart70: I didn't mention the holiday idea because I thought that type of self promotion is frowned upon, although I noticed that necessitas saw it in my profile. The holiday is College Day and the website is here.

In its simplest form, we think care packages are awesome, and that more parents should send care packages to college students, so this is a day for that (and some other fun stuff for college students too).

To all the others: I appreciate your suggestions, and we are working on a lot of those things already. We are making use of Facebook moreso than Myspace, but we'll focus more on Myspace now too. We are also looking to student governments and school newspapers for support.

What I'm wondering is if there is something really creative or innovative that could get lots of publicity for this holiday. We are aware of most of the standard publicity techniques, and I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions of things that are crazy and out there that might lead to relatively rapid mass knowledge about the holiday.

Thanks for all the help so far!
posted by andoatnp at 4:36 PM on October 24, 2006

There's a naysayer in every crowd, and this time it's my turn.

Y'see, holidays are established to celebrate or appreciate or honor something.

Your "holiday" stands for nothing. What are your families supposed to be celebrating? The years you're in university are already (typically) among the most self-indulgent and self-centered phases your life will have to offer. Now you want appreciation for that?

"Talk like a pirate day" is fun and doesn't cost anything or require any time to participate in, and nobody profits from it. It's frivolous fun, and easy to get behind. Your "holiday" is just a thinly veiled attempt to get people to send you stuff.

Bake yourself some cookies, and get over it.
posted by nadise at 5:45 PM on October 24, 2006

nadise: For the record, I'm not actually a college student. That being said, most care packages tend to be win-win situations: parents and grandparents and aunt and uncles for the most part like baking cookies and other goodies for college students, many of whom live in dorms of other shared housing where it's not feasible to do things like bake cookies for themselves.

[And if you're ever been in an apartment or dorm room when someone got some homemade cookies that they could share with their friends, I think you too would support encouraging that type of behavior.]

I freely concede that College Day is a thinly veiled attempt to get people to send care packages to college students, I just tend to think that's a good thing, and I'm not quite sure why you disagree.
posted by andoatnp at 8:41 PM on October 24, 2006

To clarify, I do think it's a nice thing to get and to give care packages, and I have fond memories involving the smell of homemade treats wafting through the dorms, and me at the receiving end. I'm completely in favor of any individual deciding they want to do that.

But it's not a holiday.

I'm against making up holidays to pressure people to spend time and money with no principle as a driving force.
posted by nadise at 12:52 AM on October 25, 2006

Sorry man, but this "holiday" isn't any "less gimmicky and less commercial". It looks like you guys are creating a holiday so you can sell care packages once it takes off. But my opinion doesn't answer your question.

You might have more luck promoting the holiday by separating your interests a bit. Create a generic site about College Day, one that doesn't mention the founders or your business. Then create an independent store when you are ready to offer care packages.

For the business side, you could raffle off a bunch of free care packages to dorms that sign up, for example. Or bribe RAs to spread the word during Orientation Night.

But as for the holiday itself, nadise is right. I just don't buy it. I don't see any reason why people would want to give care packages on a specific day, just because their kids demanded them or because everyone else is doing it. Something more specific like Freshman Day, OTOH, might tug at people's heartstrings more. (For the poor homesick freshmen, held a month after the start of fall semester). You could do some actual reasearch about when the average freshman starts to feel homesick and have your "holiday" then. To promote it, write some press releases on the findings.

But even that won't work on people like me or nadise.
posted by QueSeraSera at 1:41 AM on October 25, 2006

Another issue is there is no reliable way to time care packages to all arrive on the same day.
posted by mikepop at 5:41 AM on October 25, 2006

Something more specific like Freshman Day, OTOH, might tug at people's heartstrings more. (For the poor homesick freshmen, held a month after the start of fall semester).

QueSeraSera: I'm not sure how recently you were in college, but my experience has been that the bulk of care packages actually go to freshmen. Most relatively do a reasonably good job of sending stuff during the first year of college, and that tends to noticably drop off in later years. A number of people I knew (mysef included) never got a single care package after freshman year.

We think care packages are great, and they should be sent to people of all ages. Not that this debate is particularly helpful in coming up with new innovative ways to get the word out about College Day, although I understand that part of getting the word out succesfuly is spreading a message that would be most effective in getting people to buy into the holiday.
posted by andoatnp at 10:21 AM on October 25, 2006

On getting people to buy into the idea of the holiday: I think your best bet is to make it not appear to be a thinly-veiled marketing opportunity.

* For starters that'd involve removing (or rather not adding) the "store" from your website. Way too obvious. This will mean reduced profits in your first year, but you really need to solidly establish the holiday before you can rake it in on the gift basket sales.
* The "discounts from local merchants" angle is problematic too; it looks like you guys are getting a cut, or at least a referral fee. (I hope you are; sponsored coupon deals are old-fashioned, sure, but still profitable for all that.)
* Legitimate holidays rarely involve the phrase "Limited Liability Corporation." You really need to try a bit harder to disguise the fact that you're looking at this holiday as a for-profit enterprise.
* Your site design is far too slick, and the copy varies between too professional-looking and too bland. Roughen things up a bit, add some blink tags; make it look a little less astroturf.
* Removing the PayPerPost-looking stuff -- the ads for billq and so on -- from the blog is probably also a good idea. Speaking of the blog, it'd look more genuine if it were actually about the holiday.

On getting the word out: that part's easy. Hire some hot chicks to do the youtube camgirl thing for a while. Get started soon, you'll need a few months lead time for it to look at all plausible... You'll want to script something ahead of time, relationships and so forth -- set up a rivalry between two of them, catfights, etc., anything to build up the viewership. (Maybe you should hire some hot guys, too, so the hot chicks will have someone to fight over.) Starting around early February you can have them start dropping hints, how excited they are about March 5, their plans for the 'holiday', etc. Don't jump the gun and start too early: you need to wait until they're established personalities before you tip your hand... college kids are savvy these days, they can smell cynical marketing a mile away. Never have any of your shills mention your site by name -- way too obvious -- your target market knows how to use google; they'll find you.

Most important, don't blow your chance by clumsily announcing your intentions months too early in a widely read forum. That'd be death.
posted by ook at 10:36 PM on October 25, 2006 [1 favorite]