‘Advent Calendar August’

Thankfully, ‘Christmas in July’ passed me by. But so far there’s no escaping ‘Advent Calendar August’.

Some of the big beauty calendars – including the illustrious Liberty London offering – are already available to pre-order. And when it comes to covering the news, as with trying to bag the best calendars, the (extremely) early bird catches the worm.

Of course, it’s not as easy to rank for advent calendar-related stories as it was in the good ol’ days of, say, 2016. Today, advent calendars are an SEO problem, with seemingly every brand plugging one, and just as many dedicated websites devoted to the topic.

Ergo, I can’t justify dedicating as much energy to them as I once did, though they will remain a fixture in Harper’s Bazaar’s beauty pages between now and Christmas. As well as getting in there early, something that helps with our Google rankings (by demonstrating we’re an authority on the topic) is the provision of key details. It sounds obvious, but we need to publish info on the price, value, number of doors and on-sale dates. Amazingly not every PR provides this intel as standard.

But it’s not just increasing competition that’s made advent calendar stories harder to sell. It’s fair to say that the collective novelty is wearing off, not least thanks to viral exposés of calendars deemed mega rip offs. Frankly, for every advent calendar that elicits a squeal of excitement comes another that evokes an eye roll. And with this in mind, be honest with your clients. If their calendar doesn’t represent optimal ROI, let them know we’ll likely keep our distance.

Otherwise, let’s start spreading that cheer. If we don’t, many others will.