Why one overplayed Christmas song has a better strategy than most brands. Brands spend millions chasing festive sparkle, but Mariah Carey shows up with one song and steals the season. It’s the ultimate low-effort, high-impact strategy. Santa wishes he had this business model, argues  Ian Maskell, Founder, P E C O R I N O, and former VP, Global Marketing at Unilever. 

Mariah Carey is a Q4 winning business model in a sequinned dress. Every year, like clockwork, brands pump millions into Christmas “magic”, then Mariah strolls in presses play on her timeless 1994 asset, and hoovers up the emotional and commercial oxygen. If you’re a marketer, this should both inspire and trouble you.

Here’s what Mariah can teach all marketers (beyond how to belt out a power ballad and hit all the high notes).

1. Own the moment, not the message

Mariah doesn’t “do” Christmas campaigns. She is Christmas. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is not just a hit; it’s the season opener. The first bars play and we all know “Its Christmas”.

Most brands chase “a festive idea”. Mariah wrote her name all over the advent calendar, the marketing equivalent of buying a hotel in Mayfair. Once you own that moment in time you’ll never have to fight for attention, Mariah gets all the passing traffic!

Ask yourself: what’s my brand’s equivalent of “the moment Christmas starts” – the emotional trigger that pops the corks and brings out the tinsel?

2. Consistency beats your creative boredom

Marketers get bored long before consumers notice they are talking. Mariah has been serving exactly the same product for three decades. No ‘brand refresh’. No ‘Metaverse Edition’. Just ruthless, disciplined repetition. Consumers don’t experience your brand deck. They experience cues. The sleigh bells. The opening piano. The red dress. The whistle note. Distinctive brand assets, executed with psychopathic consistency.

Most brands, meanwhile, change the strapline every three years to signal modernity & tap into the zeitgeist

3. Build assets that pay you forever

“All I Want…” is not a campaign; it’s an annuity. Every December, the song reappears -everywhere in culture: streaming, syncs, ads, films, retail playlists - the lot. The work was done once; the value compounds indefinitely & delivers annually.

Most marketing is a fireworks display: big launch, brief moment of glory, nothing left but smoke and a whiff of regret. Mariah built a Christmas infrastructure asset.

Next time you judge your brands ‘next big idea’, ask yourself, “Is this another whizzer, or are we building an asset that can deliver year after year?” If the answer is ‘another beautifully crafted, instantly forgettable film’, you already know.

There she is owning Christmas, again! (Also, fun fact, All I Want For Christmas, was MAD//Insight's first dance at their wedding - it was a Christmas wedding)

 4. Scarcity is a strategy

Mariah disappears for 11 months. Around November, social media starts ‘defrosting’ her, when she re-emerges, demand is sky-high. Brilliantly manufactured anticipation.

Most brands mutter in a low hum all year, with the occasional shout, and wonder why Christmas never feels special. If everything is ‘always on’, nothing is an event. Seasonal brands like ice cream & chocolate design seasonal peaks the way Mariah does so beautifully. Not just  a “Christmas range” but ownable, recurring, wait-for-it moments, tapping into deep human truths,  that people actually anticipate.

5. Emotional truth beats performance metrics

Mariahs song works because it hits a stupidly simple emotional truth;  ‘In the middle of all this consumerism, what I really want is Y-O-U’

It’s not clever or complex. It’s emotionally precise. Most Christmas advertising is an over-engineered treatment of nothing-in-particular, optimised for brand lift but not for feeling. Notable exceptions include Coke & John Lewis (in the UK) – well until recently, anyway.

Mariah’s strategy is simple: make people feel something so strongly they yearn to replay it every year, at Christmas, forever.

In short, Mariah Carey out-sparkles most brands on the Christmas tree by:

·      Owning  a distinctive seasonal moment

·      Repeating, shamelessly

·      Protecting key assets

·      Building anticipation

·      Mining a deep & emotional human truth

All this, in under four minutes, without a KPI dashboard.

If you’re a cool UK marketer who proudly prefers ‘Last Christmas’ or ‘Fairytale of New York’, here’s the uncomfortable truth - you are not the consumer. ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ is the UK’s most-streamed Christmas song, Nine times platinum and a perennial No.1 – it owns the national mood at Christmas. You don’t have to like it, but ignoring Mariah is just another case of marketers mistaking their own preferences for consumer reality. Britain has voted. And it voted Mariah.

Most brands rent attention at Christmas. Mariah has a share in it. By all means play Wham or Pogues at your office Christmas party, but don’t forget to learn what Mariah can teach you, next Christmas is only 12 months away.

Ian will be writing a regular column for MAD//Insight throughout the year.