Christmas is here again

After surviving both Black Friday and the office party with most of our limbs and some of our reputations intact, we at Pure Towers feel that Christmas has officially arrived.

We always hear how "Christmas is getting earlier every year", but does it just feel that way, or is it actually true?

If we initially ignore Selfridges' shamelessly opening their Christmas store 142 days in advance of the big day in August and instead use the barrage of TV Ads as the key indicator, Christmas in 2014 started on about the 6^th November.

In previous years and using the John Lewis ad as the selected example, we find that 2013 offering ‘The Bear and the Hare’ was released on the 7^th November, while in 2012 ‘Snowman’ was first aired on the 8^th November, as was 2011’s ‘The Long Wait’.

So it would appear that advertisers have traditionally decreed a week into November as the day we should have a collective turn to the mistletoe (and madness).

Thankfully for us, we’ve found a bright, young spark at the Royal Statistical Society who has done a bit of analysis on Google, examining the volume of Christmas-related searches over recent years to give an indication of when the ‘real’ people (‘consumers’ they’re called) outside of Ad Land think that Christmas starts...

...with some SHOCKING results.

In 2007, this was on 11^th November, so pretty much in line with the ads.

Over the years, this has altered dramatically:
2008: 12^th October
2010: 3^rd October
2011: 11^th September
2013 19^th August
2014 25^th August…!

Who would have thought Selfridges were right all along!? You could argue that the event drove the search activity and thus it’s somewhat of a false positive but either way, it's clear there's a market in Summer for some Christmas advertising..!

In the meantime, we’re working on a range of Christmas Jumpers that can be worn in 28 degrees.

#PurePoint