Brands risk marketing fatigue by letting pumpkin spice and Christmas messages creep into August

The conundrum: While October sales have cemented their place within the holiday retail season, events such as Target’s Circle Week or Amazon’s Big Deal Days don’t seem to have significantly shifted holiday spending into the month.

• The monthly share of digital spending in October has remained fairly stable since 2018 at 28% to 29%, per Comscore.
• However, the growing presence of holiday-related items on store shelves and holiday-related marketing messages carries a cost: Sixty-seven percent of consumers expect to have marketing fatigue by November 1—well before the vast majority of holiday sales take place.

Driving consumers to spend: While consumers have grown increasingly value-focused over the past few years, “they continue to turn out and shop around holidays and other seasonal moments,” said Target CEO Brian Cornell during the retailer’s earnings call.

Target is hardly alone in experiencing that phenomenon, which is why a wide array of retailers and brands seeking to convince shoppers to loosen the purse strings keep pushing seasonal items earlier and earlier.

• For example, the Dunkin’ Spiked Pumpkin Spice Iced Latte hit shelves in early August, a few weeks before Starbucks rolled out an expansive fall menu lineup that includes items ranging from the OG pumpkin spice latte to an apple crisp oatmilk macchiato to a pumpkin & pepita loaf.
• Around the same time, Jimmy John’s launched a pumpkin white chocolate cookie, which the company said was for “those who are ready to embrace fall even while the AC is still blasting.”
• One might consider those companies restrained given that Home Depot hyped its Halloween decorations in March and Lowe’s and Party City began selling Halloween items in June.
• Meanwhile, John Lewis isn’t waiting until October to get consumers thinking about their holiday shopping. The UK department store chain showcased Christmas home decor trends in July (with plans to roll out related products in September), then launched its picks for the top 10 toys for Christmas in mid-August.

Our take: The holiday lever can only be pulled so many times before it comes loose. There are only so many times that (most) consumers will enjoy the novelty of a fall-flavored treat, and there is only so much space that (most) consumers have to house holiday gifts for months on end.

Rather than rely too heavily on holiday-related Band-Aids, brands would be better served finding ways to drive value-focused shoppers to spend via initiatives such as targeted promotions.