At my internship, we use a big fat book called Chase’s Calendar of Events to coordinate events we create around days that would be appropriate. Mainly, I found this book to be entertaining to fish through because there are crazy holidays that you only hear of in random email forwards and maybe at a Hallmark store. Such as, did you know that there is a National Squirrel Appreciation Day? And that it’s legitimately listed in this tool for PR professionals!?
Anyways, just recently in order to promote a new series called “The Ex List,” CBS teamed up with 1-800-FLOWERS to create a brand new holiday (because we just don’t have enough of them). Yesterday was the first annual “Ex Day.” At first I thought this was a day to gather with your friends and bitch about your exes, which immediately turned me off to the idea (an event based on bitter women doesn’t sound fun), but then I read into it. Ex Day (October 16) is a day to reach out to your former flames and maybe reconcile, or maybe even rekindle. Interesting…
Even if this holiday only garners attention for this year and never officially becomes an annual tradition, it was a good media attention grabber for CBS to promote it’s new storyline (young 20-something tries to get in touch with all of her past loves because she thinks she’s already dated “The One”). To be honest, the holiday sounds like it would mainly appeal to the female population, but that seems to be exactly the audience “The Ex List” is going for as well.
1-800-FLOWERS was smart to jump on the bandwagon in order to boost sales of their flowers. They even created a specialty bouquet created called the Ex Bouquet, which honestly is just a bunch of white, platonic-looking flowers. Conveniently enough, the day is only 2 days before “Sweetest Day” ($Ka-Ching$ for October sales...).
Even though this may be a classic PR idea, and proven to help gather media impressions, are people getting sick of having fake holidays thrust in their face? Or is it so common that it doesn’t even phase them? What do you think?
Anyways, just recently in order to promote a new series called “The Ex List,” CBS teamed up with 1-800-FLOWERS to create a brand new holiday (because we just don’t have enough of them). Yesterday was the first annual “Ex Day.” At first I thought this was a day to gather with your friends and bitch about your exes, which immediately turned me off to the idea (an event based on bitter women doesn’t sound fun), but then I read into it. Ex Day (October 16) is a day to reach out to your former flames and maybe reconcile, or maybe even rekindle. Interesting…
Even if this holiday only garners attention for this year and never officially becomes an annual tradition, it was a good media attention grabber for CBS to promote it’s new storyline (young 20-something tries to get in touch with all of her past loves because she thinks she’s already dated “The One”). To be honest, the holiday sounds like it would mainly appeal to the female population, but that seems to be exactly the audience “The Ex List” is going for as well.
1-800-FLOWERS was smart to jump on the bandwagon in order to boost sales of their flowers. They even created a specialty bouquet created called the Ex Bouquet, which honestly is just a bunch of white, platonic-looking flowers. Conveniently enough, the day is only 2 days before “Sweetest Day” ($Ka-Ching$ for October sales...).
Even though this may be a classic PR idea, and proven to help gather media impressions, are people getting sick of having fake holidays thrust in their face? Or is it so common that it doesn’t even phase them? What do you think?
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