Talk About Crazy, Early, Holiday Marketing!!!

So this year is the year that everyone is starting to act like Costco?  Or was this seemingly early Christmas marketing blitz not as abnormal as it seemed?

Remember when Costco used to put out Christmas stuff before October?  This year everyone was getting on board that early marketing scheme when we started seeing Christmas marketing before Halloween was even over with!

On November 12th, 2013 I had made mention on Facebook about the Christmas advertising I was seeing on TV.  Not much longer after that we were all getting pummeled by Christmas ads... way before Thanksgiving.

It seems that the world of advertising and marketing was testing our mettle and how much we could tolerate of early holiday marketing.

It seemed sacrilege to start seeing Christmas so many weeks before Thanksgiving and in a few cases, before Halloween, like in mid-October. (Ikea was selling Christmas trees then)

Before we start yelling about how ads for this holiday are coming earlier and earlier, it seems that marketing for such has always started up this early.  But usually, it's been more sporadic and lesser known business entities.

But as Target (one of the first stores I saw marketing) and other larger named orgs started to hit the airwaves of our TVs, we started taking notice.


Hey, back in 1943, folks were seeing holiday advertising in August.

But Christmas has come and gone.  Some of the last-minute online shoppers were hit by inundating the shipping system with a bunch of shipping needs, but that's come and gone.

Heck, I got a Christmas card on the 27th that was mailed on the 17th... so this issue was spread across various services and had started to cascade long before the actual day.

But now...  now it's getting interesting.

It seems that some companies saw what the big advertisers did and are starting to attempt to replicate the situation.

The day after Christmas, my local Safeway had already set up a fully stocked Valentine's Day section.  We're talking almost two months ahead of time!

Seriously?  It's bad enough they can't stock my favorite things consistently, but now Safeway is hitting me up seven weeks early.  LOL.

But wait... I've just heard (and saw) that Jo Ann's (fabric/craft) stores (at least one) has set up their St. Patrick's Day products!  It's December 28th, and St. Patrick's Day isn't until March 17th.

THAT'S 78 Days (2.5 months) away!!!

Dang, that's planning way ahead, as folks are trying to get ahead of their competitors.

This is because everyone is trying different things to snag more business, including being open on Thanksgiving day to snag the serious shoppers. And then on Christmas, hoping to dump inventory!

It's crazy how things are changing in as much as the different things they're trying.

I survived falling prey to the shopping lures and tricks.  Did you?

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