Question: What do Cadbury, PETRONAS, Hello Kitty, Walmart, Singapore Airlines and Sunway Group have in common?
Answer: They’re all celebrating landmark anniversaries this year, ranging from 50 to 200 years.
In addition to these iconic brands, scores of other companies in Singapore and Malaysia alone are marking significant ‘birthdays’ in 2024 with waves of marketing support. Special anniversary logos will be crafted and corporate stationery printed. Coffee-table books will be commissioned, and gala events will light up the calendar.
But the real question is: “will anyone outside these organisations really care?” And, even if they do, will they engage any differently or more deeply with these brands as a result?
For decades, anniversaries have given companies a chance to take stock: to reflect on past accomplishments, and indulge in a bit of mutual back-slapping before carefully taking down the bunting and stashing it away for another ten years.
Source: companiesmarketcap.com (Aug 2024)*
But times have changed. Of the world’s top five companies by market cap* only Microsoft is nudging 50 years in existence, with the rest numbering around 30 years or fewer. Consumers now care less about what brands achieved yesterday and more about what they can deliver today and tomorrow. So, it’s time for organisations to stop using anniversaries as a platform for self-congratulatory narratives and start leveraging them as valuable strategic engagement tools.
Of course, anniversaries should allow some scope for recognising and communicating key achievements and areas of impact, but more and more research shows that today’s consumers prioritise brands that align with their own values and address their most pressing needs, so there’s little room to celebrate legacy for legacy’s sake.
AVOIDING THE MOST COMMON ANNIVERSARY TRAPS
In this new normal, there are three key pitfalls to steer clear of:
- Damning with Self-Praise: Avoid producing campaigns that celebrate internal achievements without acknowledging customers, partners, or the broader community, as these will come across as insular and detached.
- Lacking Strategic Alignment: Failing to align anniversary communications with underlying corporate tenets such as brand mission, vision and values, growth and engagement strategies and environmental and social impact will make any impact transitory and unlikely to scratch the surface.
- Ignoring Audience Needs: Focusing on retrospective achievements, rather than addressing present concerns and future aspirations will make the activity less likely to connect and build salience with internal or external audiences.
BEST PRACTICES: ENGAGING AUDIENCES AUTHENTICALLY
In recent months, brands such as Disney, Cadbury, and PETRONAS have been expert in announcing, amplifying and sustaining milestone celebrations by embracing elements such as long-term strategic planning, community impact, user engagement, and innovation. Together, they offer some valuable, research-backed lessons for any organisation looking to avoid the most common pitfalls of anniversary campaigns.
Focus on Impact, Not Just Legacy.
While legacy can be important, consumers are more likely to engage with anniversary campaigns that emphasise the brand’s impact on their industry and the communities it serves and relies upon. Research from Harvard Business Review supports the idea that emotionally-led marketing, particularly when aligned with milestone campaigns, can foster deeper connections with consumers, leading to increased engagement and loyalty.
Disney’s extensive 100th-anniversary celebrations are a great example. While many activities tapped directly into nostalgia by mining and repackaging the brand’s prodigious back catalogue, there was also ‘legacy storytelling’ that highlighted more profound aspects of Disney’s impact on culture and entertainment such as the promotion of diversity and inclusion. This positioned the brand not just as an enduring entertainment franchise, but as dynamic and forward-thinking innovator with cultural clout.
Incorporate User-Generated Content.
User-generated content can be one of the most effective ways to involve your audience in your celebration, with Sprout Social reporting that campaigns leveraging UGC can significantly boost brand visibility and engagement.
Cadbury capitalised on this during its 200th Anniversary celebrations with its “Your Cadbury Photos” campaign, which invited customers to share personal moments tied to the brand. The initiative succeeded in capturing the strong emotional connection of the brand and led to increased engagement as memories were showcased across digital and physical media.
Create Immersive, Exclusive Experiences.
Anniversary campaigns can transcend mere commemorations by offering interactive or exclusive experiences that actively engage audiences. Research from the Journal of Marketing shows that campaigns focusing on community outreach during milestone celebrations increases brand favourability and loyalty.
PETRONAS exemplified this with its 50th Anniversary “Journey of the Twin Torches”, a national twin torch relay that visited every PETRONAS asset and areas of impact, culminating in a grand celebration on August 17th.
Along the way, a host of synchronised activities reflected the growth of PETRONAS as Malaysia’s national oil company and its emergence as a global energy player, engaging employees, stakeholders and local communities and acknowledging their contribution to the journey.
Align Celebrations with Social Good.
A recent Nielsen study found that 66% of consumers are willing to pay more for products from brands committed to positive social change, and that there is a growing expectation on brands to take a stand and make a positive impact on social issues.
Anniversaries provide an ideal opportunity for organisations to, refocus, restate and redouble their CSR and social impact commitments.
As part of its bicentennial celebrations, Cadbury released limited-edition Dairy Milk bars with retro-packaging designs, accompanied by a TV campaign that tapped into the sense of nostalgia and generosity at the heart of the brand. This in turn provided a perfect platform for highlighting Cadbury’s partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK, with a £200,000 donation.
Elements of PETRONAS’ expansive social impact efforts were also woven into its 50th celebrations and local activations. Through its Powering Knowledge programme RM 320M in sponsorships was awarded to 600 students from across Malaysia. And, in a new initiative – PETRONAS 50 Dreams – the company committed to make the dreams of 50 real-life Malaysians come true.
Engage with Innovation.
The effective use of technology can help brands to elevate their anniversary campaigns and captivate audiences.
Disney’s 100th anniversary effectively integrated augmented reality experiences, allowing fans to interact with the brand in exciting, immersive ways such as interactive digital content and virtual reality and gaming experiences through which fans explored the Disney universe in new and unexpected ways.
Meanwhile, Cadbury dug into the archives to find its most iconic vintage posters and employed a specially-developed Gen-AI tool to enable the public to choose their favourite and have their own image magically incorporated into it.
Embrace Influencers and Community Voices.
Collaborations with influencers or community leaders can amplify the reach of campaigns, lending newsworthiness and credibility. Research suggests that brands partnering with influencers can enhance relatability and trust, particularly among younger audiences.
Disney, once again, excelled in this area by collaborating with popular artists, content creators and celebrities to extend the reach of their 100th anniversary across digital channels. This included celebrity art collaborations with various well-known figures from the art and entertainment world, such as Beyonce, creating unique artworks inspired by Disney characters and stories that were then made accessible as limited edition prints and installations.
Community engagement and reconnecting with community leaders was core to PETRONAS’ overall 50th celebrations, and a key feature of the Journey of the Twin Torches. Meanwhile, influential partners such as Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, toured the PETRONAS Twin Towers on the eve of the Singapore Grand Prix to meet employees and spend time with interns as a sing of commitment to young, up-and-coming talent. The race itself was marked by the Team sporting special edition livery featuring PETRONAS emerald green and the specially created 50th Anniversary logo.
And finally… Connect the Dots.
Too often, corporate anniversaries and their marketing can seem like and afterthought or an aberration. Brands seem to forget suddenly who they are, what they stand for and who got them there in the first place in a flurry of self-aggrandising glitter and gala photo opportunities.
But when done right, a landmark anniversary can be transformed into a powerful catalyst for forging deeper relationships, ensuring that both the organisation and its audience come away enriched. The key is to treat the occasion wholly as an extension and embodiment of the company’s underlying business and brand strategy, rather than as an excuse to do something entirely different.
The meticulous planning behind the celebrations of PETRONAS, Disney and Cadbury began many months before the first communication took place, and all took the form of multi-faceted, multi-channel, multi-stakeholder activation plans with carefully choreographed cadences designed to sustain engagement up to and well beyond the date of the anniversary itself.
These three brands also demonstrate a clear understanding of how all this painstaking planning and execution is ultimately in service of a far bigger objective of engaging stakeholders of all stripes with the essence of what they stand for and the role that they want to play in the world and in people’s lives.
For Cadbury, it’s about creating a joyous and lasting connection between its products and people’s underlying instinct to be good – to be generous.
For Disney, it’s about reframing and reasserting the brand’s rich history of magic and storytelling in a more fragmented, content-and-audience-diversified entertainment landscape.
And for PETRONAS, it’s about reconciling the brands responsibilities and potential as a national oil company with those of a diverse and ever-evolving energy business poised to take a greater role on the global stage.
In this sense, corporate anniversaries really are milestones. But they are only genuinely of value if they shine a light on the path ahead even more strongly than they do on the one left behind. And only if all those on whom these brands depend in order to thrive and grow are also invited along for the ride.