Last minute holiday marketing tactics
A soup pop-up, blind boxes & an interview with Emete and Kenjiro Kirton from HATO
Fresh marketing stuff
The year’s wrapping up and it’s your final chance to boost sales before the holidays hit full swing. With the cost-of-living squeeze, shoppers are being more selective than ever. Here are some simple last-minute ideas to help you catch their attention and take care of your loyal customers (don’t forget about them!)
Exclusive holiday bundles
Put together bestseller packs, self-care kits and curated gift sets. They feel special, offer real value and encourage your customers to buy more in one go. Just make sure you’re promoting them across all your channels so they get the attention they deserve.
Thank you campaign
Show love for your loyal customers with a thank you campaign. Send an email (or even a printed card) letting them know how much you appreciate their support this year, and give them something special in return: an exclusive discount, a limited-time perk for 2025 (or early 2026), etc. It’s a small gesture that makes them feel valued and keeps them coming back.
Loyalty points
And if you’ve got a loyalty program, give your customers double or extra points on holiday purchases. It’s a fun way to reward them and encourage more shopping. Remember to shout about it in your marketing so everyone knows the value!
Also make sure your website is optimised for holiday sales. Highlight your special bundles and holiday offers prominently on your homepage and make the checkout process as seamless as possible. And don’t forget to update your shipping info and cut-off times (domestic and int'l) on your website banners, product pages, FAQ page and marketing emails to make sure customers receive their gifts/products on time.
Buzzy campaigns
Dove x Crumbl: turning body care into a Gen Z obsession
Dove is iconic, but among Gen Z it’s not the world’s coolest brand. So they teamed up with viral cookie brand Crumbl to turn body care into a trend-driven experience. Pink bottles and fan-inspired scents mirrored Crumbl’s hype vibe, while social leaks on TikTok and Reddit kept people talking. The result? A culturally relevant and shareable campaign that made Dove feel fresh and fun!
Blind Boxes are taking over
Mystery sells. After the HUGE success of Popmart’s Labubu, brands are starting to sell more blind boxes – products where customers don’t know exactly what they’ll get – to drive excitement, repeat purchases and social buzz. Everyone loves a surprise (right?) and blind boxes work for all budgets. Some brands are offering exclusive merch items to boost sales, retailers like Le Creuset use them to clear inventory, and fashion brands are packaging off-season items in mystery boxes too. Small cost, big reward. See here & here.
Nike serves up soup and a hyper-local activation in China
Nike’s latest campaign with Olympic sprinter Su Bingtian is all about creating a shareable experience. The brand opened a pop-up on Ersha Island in Guangzhou, a hotspot for local runners, serving herbal soup with a custom Nike Swoosh spoon! I love it. The spoon is, of course, already going viral. Check the pics here.
Hire me for your next event
November was such a busy month! I finally made it to Manchester for the first time to give a lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University on creative careers and freelancing. I loved the energy! And back in London, I hosted a talk on social media for Enterprise Nation x Vodafone Business Connected Academy for a packed room of 80 ambitious entrepreneurs and small biz owners.
I’m now taking bookings for Q1 2026 & I also have some availability in December if you’re looking for a speaker.
Whether it’s a panel discussion, a workshop or a talk, I love delivering practical, value-packed talks that your audience will walk away from feeling inspired and motivated. Hit me up if you’d like me to speak at your event!
New stuff on social
TikTok’s new AI tool, Smart Split, makes editing easy. Upload a video over a minute long (vlogs, podcast interviews, long tutorial videos) and it automatically chops it into bite-sized clips. It detects natural breaks, adds captions, reframes everything for vertical viewing, and gives you multiple ready-to-post TikToks.
Instagram finally gives us watch history! Now you can see every Reel you’ve watched in the past 30 days, sorted from oldest to newest, and even filter by author. I’m loving this feature. Perfect for finding inspo, keeping up with trends & finding that Reel you told yourself you wanted to recreate! See more here.
IG is also rolling out a wider launch of its new drawing tool in DMs. Now you can doodle and drop stickers over your chats. Just tap the + icon next to the message box, hit Draw, and a set of creative tools appears at the top of your screen.
Threads launches “Ghost Posts.” These are temporary updates that vanish from everyone’s feed after 24 hours. Don’t worry, they’re auto-archived, so you can still access them even after they disappear for everyone else.
This month, I’m chatting with the talented couple behind HATO studio & press, Emete and Kenjiro Kirton.
I first met Emete and Kenjiro a few years ago, when I picked up one of their books, Cooking with Scorsese: The Cookbook, at Offprint. It’s now a favourite of mine — a beautifully designed book featuring 46 recipes from top international chefs, inspired by iconic films.
Since then, I’ve explored their world through their zines and publications, visited their stunning studio (designed by Toogood), attended many of their events, and of course followed their incredible creative work.
Such an inspiring duo, juggling so many fantastic creative projects. Enjoy the interview!
HATO began as a creative studio, then expanded into a publishing house (Hato Press), and recently added a concept store. Was this growth a plan from the start or did it happen organically?
It’s been a pretty organic journey to be honest. We always set out HATO to be different, as at the time we set up there weren’t many contemporary design studios that we see now. Ones that had their own practice and engaged directly with audiences. So we knew we had to create something to be a home to our interests and the people we wanted to work with.
HATO’s ethos is about engaging communities through creative play. What does that mean to you? And how does it guide the projects you take on?
We feel strongly about education and tools. Our design projects have always centred around building tools to empower new audiences. We’re driven by the belief that if we can inspire new ways of thinking we can build a more progressive society altogether. In our early days this was expressed through community workshops with children. More recently this has been through larger scale projects in branding and campaigns.
For the Barbican’s Feel the Sound exhibition, you created the exhibition design and OOH. Could you tell us more about the project and how you approached making sound something visitors could experience visually?
We started by researching how movement is captured through a static image, such as processes such as stroboscopic photography. Our research and concept were centred around the emotional connection both individuals and groups can experience through music as a dynamic free-flowing expression. It was important that the key visual could communicate this through both static and animation. Whilst the wider design palette allowed us to bring in some more contemporary details from the typeface Rublena from Kyiv Type Foundry, a black grotesque font from the historcal USSR region, a strong narrative of being heavily bootlegged, a font with its own subculture to pair with the exhibition.
Any publications you’re excited to release this year?
Yes, we have a couple new titles that we are really excited about for the new year, but can’t say a lot on those yet. But we’re also working on a new Cooking with Scorsese & others Cookbook, which will focus on international and independent film, shifting away from a Western-centric / Hollywood framing.
Your studio is absolutely stunning! Was the location by the Barbican something you chose on purpose?
It cropped up through a collaborator of ours who had the lease and was exploring what to do with it. We didn’t give it much thought initially, as we thought it would be way too small. But then we thought with the smaller space we could really make something that’s beautiful to come into and work, and the Golden Lane Estate has been a really nice home for us.
You’ve hosted a lot of events since opening your studio. What types of projects and events do you most enjoy hosting?
There isn’t one type over another – good people coming together is always something we enjoy and look forward to.
Every item in the shop feels like it has a story. How do you decide what deserves a spot? What’s your approach to curating the selection?
A lot of the pieces we have are through people we’ve met, either through friends or collaborations. We feel more comfortable when there’s a close relationship to the objects that way – they’re more embedded into the space and the ethos of the studio.
Ok, some quick-fire questions. A book that shaped your creative outlook?
Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. Not just creative outlook, it’s monumental in terms of every aspect of life and society.
A movie you’d happily rewatch forever?
Tampopo or Old Boy?
Oldboy, as I’m wearing the cap now.
Dream collaborator?
Takeshi Kitano (Ken).
Favourite object in the Hato Press shop right now?
Jochen Holz’s glassware.
Quick fix when you hit a creative block?
Go for a walk.
Digital tool you can’t live without?
More interesting to live without them all.
Favourite social media platform?
Sabakuro online.
Best piece of advice you’ve ever received as a creative?
Never revisit your greatest hits. Always move forward.
And finally, advice you’d share with your students at UAL?
You’ll have 100s of projects. No need to do everything in one go. Enjoy the process of design, don’t rush to the end, skipping research and concepts.
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Discover more of their work on the HATO Studio website, shop their beautifully curated publications and products on their e-shop, or visit their stunning studio in person. Their gift shop runs until December 19.