National Read This Column Day

It’s Afternoon Tea Week next week, apparently. It must be true – I’ve received five releases from various agencies promoting best venues. Ie, clients.

Is any week free of these themed days? On a whim I Googled to see if there was a day dedicated to sausages. There was, obviously; a full-fat, artery-clogging, trucker’s pig-out of a week (26 October to 1 November), inaugurated by a slap-up lunch in the Butcher’s Hall, London. How about a Sausage Dog Day, then? Yup: World Dachshund Day was on 21 June, timed to coincide with the longest day of the year (see what they did there?).

An awful lot of fluff fills the spaces between causes like World Cancer Day (4 February) or Endangered Species Day (15 May) or World Financial Planning Day (7 October). This week is simultaneously International Clown Week, Simplify Your Life Week and Stop On Red Week. Today is National Grab Some Nuts Day, which seems ripe for misinterpretation.

All of which brings us back to Afternoon Tea Week.

Faced by a barrage of marketing-driven days, press tends to tune out themed day/week releases. A PR friend promoted a national literacy event a while ago, a genuinely meaningful day backed by A-list authors. Reactions to her pitches could be summed up as “meh” – we get so many, a hack from the Independent explained. Smart cookie, she nonetheless landed several national broadcast slots and got the hashtag trending #1 worldwide on Twitter that day.

Notwithstanding that she opened a vein for the campaign, I’d suggest her success was because the event had value beyond itself. A national writing day provided a springboard for discussions about creativity, for op-eds about children’s literacy and empowerment through valuing imaginations. To pluck another example at random, World Oceans Day (8 June) offers a peg to tackle marine pollution or blue health.

And Afternoon Tea Day? Tabloids may pick it up for fun travel round-ups – this is silly season after all. I can see how it might make a digital story for overtly traditional magazines like Country Life or Britain. What’s not to like about images of floral china teacups and pillowy slabs of Victoria sponge? But without a bigger tale to tell, I’d be wary of hitching your wagon to many of these, however convenient a hook they seem. Journalists glaze over at marketing hype. Too much fluff today could obscure a genuine story tomorrow.