Corporate anniversary

Characteristics

An anniversary can advertise a firm's staying power and longevity. A report in The New York Times explained the marketing logic:

Anniversary campaigns are part of a trend inspired by the economy that could be called comfort marketing, as advertisers invoke misty, water-colored memories of the past to woo consumers into buying products in the present. A major aspect of comfort marketing is what brand managers call authenticity: reminding shoppers who seek value in the provenance of merchandise to suggest a product is worth buying because its quality has been tested for decades.

Marketers choose variables relating to anniversaries to meet specific promotional objectives. While the length of time celebrated by an anniversary is often divisible by five, such as the 10th, 15th, 25th,{{cite news |access-date= 2013-02-08 |access-date= 2013-02-08 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100718234416/http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2004089,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= July 18, 2010

Planning

Planning an anniversary can take years. In some cases, special marketing consultants and event planners have been hired to coordinate the effort. Large corporations typically work closely with their corporate advertising agency as well as their marketing and sales departments to plan sometimes elaborate campaigns, often with a special theme to mark the occasion. For example, Starbucks marked their 40th anniversary with a redesigned logo and media campaign.{{cite news

So we are 50 years old, and we intend to celebrate. We are planning a series of events for the months ahead—some small and rather personal and sentimental—others on a bigger scale. In all, we hope to reach a lot of people to whom we owe thanks: not only our working colleagues within the company but also the legions of readers and believers who through the years have helped us grow.

There is flexibility in terms of choosing which dates to use when determining an anniversary. The start date is often the month or year when a firm was founded, but this can vary considerably, and exceptions are the rule; for example, Lego toys celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008 –– exactly 50 years after the time when the founder's son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, filed a patent for the iconic plastic bricks in 1958.{{cite magazine |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080131130615/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1707379,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= January 31, 2008

Difficulty in measuring success

Measuring the success of any advertising effort, including an anniversary celebration, can be difficult. Sometimes an anniversary generates negative publicity, such as the tenth anniversary of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, which was largely seen as a colossal business blunder.{{cite news

Sometimes, when a brand pins all its advertising and marketing on an anniversary, it can give the impression that it doesn't have anything robust to say about its business; that the only way it is different from its competitors is that it has been going longer. ... The problem is, apart from the odd column inch in the press giving the company free PR, it is not immediately obvious what is gained through anniversary celebrations. Telling your customers you are of a certain age creates nostalgia and makes people think about your brand; on the other hand they would probably prefer you to spend money giving them a discount.

References

References

1. Variables include number of past years to celebrate, place for the celebration, budget, and so forth.