The Haunting Holiday Season

The holiday season comes with a time of heightened anxiety and stress for many individuals. Because of this, companies have taken it upon themselves to relate to their audience by creating campaigns that resonates this feeling of heightened anxiety during the holiday season. I will specifically be analyzing the “Walkers - It Feels Good to Share” campaign that is a seasonal mental health campaign that runs in the UK. The brand Walkers performed their own research to see how their audience feels during the holiday season. They found that 52% of the UK public feels added stress by society to be happier during the Christmas season. Therefore, the “It Feels Good to Share” campaign encourages people to open up about how they are feeling and reminds others to check in on their friends and family during this time.

The campaign is focused around a video that was circulated. The video stars a young man named Larry who goes to a holiday gathering with his family members. The video follows Larry around throughout his interactions during the gathering with an emoji above his shoulder showing how he truly feels on the inside. One of the scenes in the video involves Larry and his friend who asks him how he is really feeling. That is when Larry decides to start to open up to his friend about how he is truly feeling. The fact that his friend pushed Larry further to share how he is truly feeling during this stressful time of year is powerful in reminding the public that it is okay to push others to share how they really are feeling.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPPEfwirAbg

The video campaign resonated with me because I also feel a sense of heightened anxiety during the holiday season. Being around family and having the same surface level conversations about school and the future of my career is always stressful to endure. Watching this campaign, I felt seen. I felt as though Walkers was able to capture this feeling of awkwardness while also driving home the importance of being that person to ask someone how they truly are feeling. This is something I am going to remember heading into the holiday season.