Victoria Secret Oct. 27, 2009
HELLO GENTLE READERS,
Now today is November 7, 2009, if memory serves me correctly. Halloween was one week ago and Thanksgiving isn’t for 3 weeks (minus two days, I believe).
So, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that make it a little over one and a half months until Christmas?
Victoria Secret started a Christmas advertising campaign along about October 27. The local Walmart and other stores had Christmas stuff out before we even started shopping for Halloween. Online advertisers did the same.
That leaves the people of Christmas-celebrating countries being inundated with advertising not for the “12 Days of Christmas” like in times past or even the “advent” period of 25 days like in my childhood, but for 3 months.
How about if these companies that barage us with advertising took one week of their ad budgets and donated the money to charity? What if they took the advertising dollars currently spent before Thanksgiving and used it to donate toys to children who aren’t going to get much this year because of the World’s economy problems? Perhaps if the stores and churches (spending gobs of money on “put Christ back in Christmas” campaigns) took a significant percentage of their advertising dollars in helping homeless and jobless people find homes and jobs for Christmas?
What about the payoff? I know we, along with many other people, would be much more likely to do our Christmas and year round shopping at those businesses that did these things. Besides, the lower prices from not spending the money on advertising would really entice more spending. Hmmmmm.
This year I reckon I’ll look around and see which companies are doing much more giving than spending. To be honest, Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, but 3 months of Christmas REALLY wears me out and makes a “special” time of year a whole lot less special.
LaVerna and Tom Vickers
