award of merit
britt@pbandseattle.com
Holiday marketing has a sameness problem. Markets, light shows, pop-ups — by December, every option is promising the same thing: food, lights, vendors, magic. For Seattle Christmas Market, a European-style village still building its reputation in the city, blending in wasn't an option. Neither was outshouting the competition.
So we stopped trying to win the "best market" argument and asked a different question: why do people actually go?
The answer wasn't "to attend a Christmas market." It was to feel something — a break from the gray, an excuse to be festive, a cozy night that didn't require a full holiday commitment. When we listened to how people talked about the season, the same tension kept surfacing: they wanted the feeling of Christmas without the weight of it. The big productions, the full-day itineraries, the pressure to make it special — that was exactly what was keeping people home.
The insight reframed everything: people aren't looking for Christmas. They're looking for a little Christmas. Our job wasn’t to convince people this was the best market; it was to position Seattle Christmas Market as the city’s go-to answer for anyone “in the mood for a little Christmas.” Not a big, all-day event you had to gear up for, but an easy, low-friction way to feel festive on any given night.
From there, the creative almost wrote itself.
The first move was repositioning — not as a market with vendors, but as the answer for anyone in the city who suddenly wants to feel festive. That's a totally different competitive frame. We're not up against other markets anymore. We're up against staying home.
And once we made that shift, the audience got a lot more interesting. Families and tourists were always going to show up. But the real growth was sitting in a different crowd entirely: young adults, couples, coworkers — people who'd never call themselves "Christmas market people" but would absolutely say yes to a drink under the lights on a Friday night.
Tone followed naturally. No big holiday spectacle energy. Instead, something more human and low-key — come for an hour, stay for the night, come back whenever. Language designed to remove friction, not pile on hype.
Media became an extension of that thinking, not just a delivery system for it. "Have yourself a little Christmas" wasn't really a tagline — it was a prompt. Something designed to meet people mid-scroll or mid-commute at exactly the moment the feeling might strike, with a simple next step built right in.
Even the smallest executions became proof points. A branded truck serving hot cider out in the neighborhoods wasn't a stunt — it was the strategy made physical. If the whole brand exists for people who want a little Christmas, then of course it shows up where they already are, on a cold day, with something warm.
The through-line held everywhere because the insight was specific enough to actually guide decisions — not just inspire them.
The result was a brand with a role, not just a presence. Attendance increased 51% from the prior year. Their social following grew by 20%. And we delivered a 12:1 ROAS. Ultimately, we created a presence that didn't need to be the biggest holiday event in Seattle. It just needed to be the most obvious answer when the mood hit. In a crowded December calendar, that's a more defensible — and more human — place to own.
