Milestone Marketing

Driza has just turned 5 years old—time flies. For reference, it’s also been 5 years since COVID, which is frightening how quickly time passes. 5 years learning a bit of everything, laughing at almost everything too, but above all growing as a team and company without losing our ambition or humanity along the way.

The list of anecdotes is longer than my memory can retain. Many I couldn’t tell with all their colors since some clients also read this newsletter. So, while freedom of the press still exists in these articles—until proven otherwise—I thought it would be fun to discuss Milestone Marketing, a meta-article about any brand anniversary celebration.

 

Milestone Marketing

Starting from the beginning, though it may seem obvious, this concept refers to using company milestones (whether anniversaries of its founding or internal metrics) to generate content, reputation, engagement, or sales, among others.

The slow but steady professionalization of the European marketing industry inevitably specializes different branches of what was once a single strategic drawer, with Milestone Marketing being another new tool in the content workshop, especially in DTC ecosystems but also B2B—emphasis on European because Americans are ahead here again, having applied it for years already.

As with any relatively new discipline, the rules are rewritten every afternoon, and there aren’t yet enough studies, books, or science on the subject. An internal debate arose, for example, about whether companies with more history tend to celebrate fewer milestones each year or more than younger ones; we haven’t found a bibliography page on this. We don’t believe companies like Codorniú (1551) celebrate their anniversary every 10 years, but at least every 25, like wedding anniversaries. The last time was in 2021 with 150 years (yes, the math doesn’t add up for us either on those 150 years…)

 

 

We also haven’t found the answer to the juiciest question: whether a brand celebrating 100 years or 10 generates any superior connection or affinity, though we assume it does. We did find this fantastic article that, using the beer industry as a sample, confirms the positive effect of YOE (Year of Establishment) presence on brand perception, and that an older one always has a greater impact than a more recent one (Pizzi & Claricini 2019)

In any case, Milestone Marketing is essentially nothing more and nothing less than a content quick-win. Other marketing initiatives require much thought, time, and resources—milestones don’t, at most a calendar and remembering when you were born or the original figure you want to celebrate. They’re a direct tactic that works without requiring extraordinary feats of creativity, strategy, or production, with a memorable, powerful, endearing, and easy narrative for the audience. In part, they’re the older sibling of the now outdated “International Day of [Insert Your Nonsense Here]” calendar. And, above all, they’re inevitable: they happen when they happen, can’t be easily avoided, and force teams to act on them.

 

 

Of course, the cobbler’s children go barefoot: our original idea was to organize a series of interviews with former clients and ex-employees, merchandise, a content calendar, plus a small event and a landing page with figures and photographs from our history… But sometimes you have to acknowledge defeat before Cronos, God of time, and the income statement that doesn’t always play on your team; and limit ourselves to this publication and little more. Next year we’ll celebrate 6 with more enthusiasm and planning…! And from there always with hexadecimal references (6, 10, 12, 15…)

 

Milestones to Celebrate as a Brand

Within this facet of content marketing, there’s a long list of reasons with sufficient weight to celebrate, from the passage of time to revenue, user, or download records—which could apply to the brand or even its products; McDonald’s always celebrates the Big Mac’s anniversaries. Each proyecto should be clear about which figures have celebration potential, which usually don’t differ much from those reviewed daily as business indicators, establishing an internal marketing protocol that facilitates that continuous communication.

The most classic case, besides the years since a company was founded or its revenue, is the number of followers on a social network (would 450 on this newsletter barely a couple of months later be cause for celebration?). On this volatile point where people celebrate followers who can immediately unfollow, there’s a long list of associated fiascos, of course, this being our favorite.

With the Build in Public trend, there are now many fantastic cases of celebrating milestones that would previously have been more internal. The one executing this strategy best by far in Spain today is Nacho Tejero from Webel.

In our case, we celebrate the number of proyectos among others, although we skipped the 200 figure (I only posted about it the other day); with 100 we did carry out several actions like sponsoring Dealflow by Jaime Novoa among others.

 

 

As a reference for simple protocols, at Zertia, our client, we established recurring publication of partnerships on LinkedIn. Simple, scalable, with impact.

To end on a fun note, one of the most peculiar anniversaries I’ve seen in recent weeks is this version of WWF’s “Earth Hour” but on Finnish radios with a techno track that turned 25. Kudos to Lucía, a friend of the house, who sent us the reference from Hawaii 🏄

 

Retro Marketing

Another lateral strategy that often accompanies the former in activations is Retro Marketing. It is based on recovering elements from the past, whether visual, cultural, or emotional, to connect with the current audience. It relies primarily on nostalgia, the revaluation of vintage, and the power of shared memories. Just a few days ago, Zara celebrated 50 years by redesigning its first store, for example.

 

Curious Note on Multiples of 5

On this topic, getting into the details, we wondered why we continue to celebrate anniversaries primarily in multiples of five. Beyond the well-documented “round number bias,” we haven’t found any reference to anniversary celebrations. Only this study, so curious about how Equity Crowdfunding investors in France invest in round numbers that are multiples of 5 the more uncertain they feel about a proyecto’s success, aggravated by the number of investors who have already backed a proyecto: the more existing investors, the rounder the investment they’ll make… Curious!

 

New Year, New Life

Enough ink has been spilled on this page; I’ll conclude now.

Thanks to 9 Lives, I’ve experienced this year more closely than ever the “birthday effect” channeled through the assignment of feet, that desire to reset or relaunch our life, to start with the counter at zero, a clean slate for all the proyectos or goals we have when we turn a year older, with batteries recharged, like on New Year’s (I turned 30 writing this about a week ago, and I certainly felt that way facing the new decade); and I believe that beyond content, brands should celebrate more anniversaries to, incidentally, reevaluate their objectives and start anew.