From Tinsel to Touchdowns: How Your Brand Can Win in Q1

Image credit: JOSHUA COLEMAN via Unsplash​

Fact: Christmas is the king of the social calendar. People are carol singing, shopping, sipping mulled wine. They’re enjoying the festive moment IRL and on their feeds. And why wouldn’t they, given that anticipation is being built across TV, OOH - and most importantly, social.

Given that festive-season sales were estimated to eclipse £88 billion in 2024 in the UK alone, it’s no surprise that brands spend an entire year crafting their Christmas moments. And they’re not afraid to put their money where their mouth is. Adspend hit a record £10.5 billion last year.

But just because you’ve rolled out your campaign, doesn’t mean that now is the time to breathe a sigh of relief. Because in a few short weeks, the fireworks will be going off to ring in the New Year - and with the arrival of Q1 comes one of the most level playing fields a brand can ask for.

This is an opportunity to own a whole new set of conversations. Q1 is stacked with cultural moments. From January’s wellness boom and February’s Valentine’s/Super Bowl double-header to March’s St Patrick’s Day. All are opportunities for proactive and reactive, relevant storytelling.

Yes, it’s noisy. Yes, you’ll fight tooth and nail for every scrap of attention. But should that deter brands? Absolutely not.

New is the order of the day: new behaviours, new trends, new expectations - and new leading brands. And if you understand these - like, really understand them - you’ll be the one cracking open the champagne.

Read the room

So, what does showing up well actually look like?

First, you need to read the room. January isn’t all “new year, new me”. It’s hangovers (both physical and emotional). It’s empty bank accounts. It’s regret about that second helping of turkey. People aren’t arriving energised - they’re arriving exhausted.

That’s why tone matters more than ever. If you want to resonate, meet your audience where they are. Be the pillar that supports them through the slump. Accept their spending power may be reduced, and that now might not be the moment to push hard on sales. Instead, focus on where you can inject value. Get the tone right, and you strengthen relationships (driving awareness in the process).

Next: double down on relevance. Say you’re a hospitality brand dealing in the finer things in life. Chances are you’ll struggle to convince consumers strapped for cash to spend lavishly. So pivot. Spotlight high-value deals and discounts. Match your community’s mindset, rather than the one you wish they had.

And while you’re mapping out long-term social strategy, don’t miss the real-time opportunities unfolding every day. Your community is always open to conversation; you should be too. Keep your eyes peeled for moments to enter the narrative (and yes, sometimes that moment lives in someone else’s comments section).

Culture = your competitive advantage

From here, relevance becomes your superpower.

Look at Valentine’s Day and St Patrick’s Day. The colour palettes for both are predictable - but that doesn’t mean your content should be. You need to demonstrate that you have legitimacy to play in these spaces. And that’s why bringing the right creators into the fold is crucial.

Case in point: if you’re a beer brand trying to cut through the Guinness-heavy noise around St Patrick’s Day, turn your attention to someone like Cassie Stokes. An Irish creator known for her food and drink takes, she brings an aura of credibility to the table. Her reputation enables you to inject some authenticity into your activity.

Alternatively, you can flip the script entirely and use these moments as a springboard for your own tone-appropriate celebration. Who Gives A Crap did exactly that with its pre-Valentine’s ‘World Dump Day’ campaign, leaning into its trademark humour while still tapping into the cultural calendar. Perfectly off-beat, perfectly on-brand.

In terms of reach, few moments come close to the Super Bowl, with 2025’s edition seen by more than 191 million unique viewers. But while TV was once the undisputed star of the show, the real action now happens on social. Super Bowl content generated a staggering 1.4 billion views in the two weeks before kick-off this year.

Best-in-class brands know how to blend both worlds. Doritos’ decision to resurrect its ‘Crash the Super Bowl’ concept wasn’t just nostalgia. The brand recognised that it could tweak the formula so that it remained culturally literate, while simultaneously tapping into the user-generated content (UGC) hype. The result? The announcement video saw a 9.2% engagement rate, while the wider conversation delivered more than 23,000 engagements.

In other words, social brought the scale and the soul.

Don’t get blinded by virality

Viral moments are great. But vanity metrics fade as quickly as they appear.

Brands that endure listen to their communities. They measure sentiment. They track conversations. They analyse engagement. Because these signals tell you whether your content simply landed - or whether it sparked conversations that last longer than a few seconds.