After Christmas, excess often comes with guilt. It’s a ripe old time for brands to sell a solution. Jay Topham, co-founder at Unfound, explores a better way to sell during a healthier January.
New Year, New You! December saw you eat too much, drink too much, not move enough, and your coffee order went from a flat white to a Baileys coffee. Now you’ve got to contend with Dry January, Veganuary, busy gyms, making sure you drink a gallon of water, taking all the supplements Instagram and TikTok recommend…, and the list goes on.
Feeling guilty and suddenly hyper-health conscious? Don’t panic—there’s a wealth of brands on hand to help, but can you trust them?
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Guilt trip: a sales pitch
As brand consultants, we should probably pause for a moment and ask ourselves how ethical it is for brands to capitalize on our health-conscious guilt in January. Can brands inspire meaningful post-holiday wellness without simply feeding off our post-holiday blues?
The answer isn’t a simple one.
In short, yes, it can be done. But truthfully, there have been some painful mistakes brands have made in the past that we can learn from. It was only 2019 when Peloton transported us back to a tradwife-style era with its holiday ad (it couldn’t even wait until January to capitalize on the post-holiday guilt).
The campaign featured a woman receiving a Peloton bike as a Christmas gift from her husband. This is not a far cry from an episode of Mad Men or ads in the ’60s where husbands would gift their wives kitchenware—the message is pretty much the same. What followed was a social media storm. Critics quickly labeled the ad “sexist” and “dystopian,” leading to a significant backlash and a $1.5 billion drop in Peloton’s market value.
Similarly, WW (formerly Weight Watchers) has faced criticism for running January campaigns that promote weight loss as a New Year’s resolution. Critics accused WW of perpetuating a harmful diet culture and promoting unhealthy relationships with food. Many claimed the idea that you must immediately “fix” your body after the holidays can create unnecessary guilt.
Healthy habits, but hold the shame
However, brands shouldn’t shy away from using our collective wellness focus in January as a means to reach their audience. Yes, they are selling (that’s what they’re here to do), but they are also encouraging healthy habits for the year ahead—at a time when their consumers are more engaged than ever. Some brands are doing this effortlessly without tailgating off the old trope that we need to punish ourselves in January.
Lucky Saint giving away 100,000 free non-alcoholic pints through Jan is a case in point. By doing this, the brand is, first and foremost, making it easier for those seeking respite from a booze-heavy holiday period to make better choices. But they’re also enabling those people to continue benefiting from the socializing that comes with a good old trip down the pub.
As Lucky Saint founder Luke Boase points out, the mental health benefits of socializing are well documented, and the pub – one of the UK’s finest and oldest institutions – is a first port of call for coming together with friends and making new connections. As opposed to capitalizing on our January guilt, this campaign serves as a reminder that there are other ways to feel good about ourselves after an indulgent holiday period. (It’s also a win for the pubs themselves, who often feel the brunt of dry Jan in a lack of custom.)
Huel gave us another lesson on how this can be done well when they dropped their first-ever global campaign on January 1, ‘Every Fire Needs Its Fuel.’ It doesn’t play into a feeling of guilt or self-resentment following one too many chocolates at Christmas and not sticking to a workout regime. Instead, it celebrates and inspires the energy and drive that can help us achieve our goals. The hero video uses a broad range of audience types, giving the message that new habits can be fueled by Huel, regardless of your lifestyle. It’s a timeless message, but one that feels even more powerful for its New Year release date.
Just another great story to tell
January shouldn’t be lampooned as the month where brands create money-grabbing campaigns that feed off a collective guilt. It can and should be done with integrity: January is just another reason to tell a great brand story.
Brands that really know their audience and believe in their product can double down in January while health is front-of-mind for their audience. It’s a time to spotlight your brand story for consumers looking for year-round answers and solutions. But be careful; you need to show up for those consumers all year round – with the same energy. After all, a great brand doesn’t just ride the wave of resolutions – it inspires rituals.