What strategy can teach us about Christmas

In this festive episode of The Persuasion Game, hosts Laura and Adam embark on a Christmas special where they tackle some common festive dilemmas but with a twist – they’ll be using marketing insights from past guests. 

Drawing on their discussions with previous pod guests Jane Buck, Grant Mckenzie, Paul Thomas, Katie Evans, Nick Graham and Alex O’Rourke they explore family traditions, gifting, creating an inclusive holiday atmosphere and more. Packed with practical advice, heartwarming stories, and festive cheer, this episode offers valuable tips on leveraging persuasion techniques for a joyful and harmonious Christmas.

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Transcript

Adam: This is the Persuasion Game, the Forge’s podcast all about the art of persuasion. Each episode we connect with marketers, business leaders and beyond to learn how they use persuasion to influence their customers, convince their stakeholders and drive their businesses forward.

Adam: So happy December Laura.

Laura: Happy December to you.

Adam: Yeah, I’m very excited about today — we are going to be doing a Christmas special.

Laura: Something rather different.

Adam: Yes, something rather different. So what we’ve decided to do today is take what we believe are the biggest Christmas conundrums that people might be thinking about, and try and answer them through what we’ve learned from our guests over the last six episodes.

Laura: Yes. Because if there’s ever a time when the art of persuasion is more important than ever, it’s when you’re a little bit drunk on Christmas Day and there’s a lot of vested interest in a particular outcome that maybe you don’t agree with.

Adam: Exactly. And when we were planning this episode there are some incredible parallels between Christmas and marketing. So I think this completely holds up as a worthwhile exercise.

Laura: We’re going to see if we can strategise our way to the optimal Christmas experience.

Adam: Absolutely.

Laura: Never let it be said the strategist doesn’t give useful information.

Adam: Yeah exactly — the strategist Santas. Let’s be called that.

Laura: Excellent.

Adam: So we’ve sourced questions from a range of different places. Some have come from clients that we’ve asked, others have come from Nappy Valley, which you’re a proud lurker on.

Laura: Lurker on, yeah.

Adam: For those that don’t know what Nappy Valley is — it’s the Southwest London equivalent of Mumsnet.

Laura: Yeah, like problems, but posh and not really that important.

Adam: Okay. So I think we just get into it. Yeah, okay, ready?

Laura: Okay.

Laura: Okay, this is a really good one, and I relate very hard to this for some of my family members. Which is — “I’m really struggling with Christmas present ideas for my partner. Whenever I ask them what they want they say “oh I don’t really need anything” or “just some time together” or whatever. But I really want to get something special.”

Adam: Okay, so what did we learn? I think a really relevant bit of advice for this one is from our last episode – our episode with Jane Buck. Jane is a phenomenal innovator, has a great sense of what people want and is able to bring those things to market. So who better to ask for advice about how to make the perfect gift. Should we hear what Jane has to say?

[Jane Buck clip plays:]

Jane: Actually at the end of the day it really comes back to a few basics — which is people’s behaviour. So I’ve always been consumer-centric. And brands — I just love brands. Bottom line, all the different parts of my career are essentially rooted in people, observations, behaviours and brands — how they behave, what makes them tick, what makes them grow. It’s always back to the roots of working with how consumers interact with the stuff we sell.

Laura: So the interesting thing about this kind of listening deeply is I think this is something that’s really taken off with advertising this year. We’ve got the John Lewis ad which is all about really searching for the perfect gift — the two sisters — and there’s a lot of reflection from her thinking “what could it be, what could it be,” really going down memory lane as she tries to identify the perfect gift. And I think also we see it with Etsy, who’ve always done a really nice niche in personalised thoughtful gifts. They’ve got a radio ad at the moment saying really listen deeply to what people are asking for, or what they’ve complimented you on, and then you can get a better gift.

It kind of taps into the trend we’ve been seeing a lot across this year as well — which is about how people are trying to enhance connections with others. It’s not always about spending more money, it’s about getting a deeper connection, demonstrating personalisation, thought and care. Perhaps because of the straitened times people are prioritising connections even more.

Adam: Yeah absolutely. I think that’s right. I’ve seen it this year — we’re using Giftster as a family to help each other choose the right gifts so no one gets something they don’t want. And actually what’s really interesting is it’s full of experiences — through all the generations, everyone’s now asking for things they want to do with each other. And I think that’s really nice.

Laura: Oh that’s lovely.

Adam: Okay, second question — relatedly, “what makes for a memorable present? I’m doing Christmas on a budget this year but I still want it to be as high impact as possible”.

Laura: Okay, well this immediately makes me think of Paul. For those of you who were with us at the beginning of the series — Paul from Suntory is a Global Insight Director there, and he came and talked to us all about premiumisation. And actually what’s really interesting about what Paul had to say is that lots of liquids, when you get down to it, are the same — a 40% clear liquid in a bottle that delivers alcohol to you in some kind of way. So one of the most interesting things Paul said was that when comparing different spirits, people really care about the stories. They really care about where the drink came from, its provenance — that interesting story about a distillery that’s been there for 400 years, that thing you can tell your friends when you’re sipping the whisky and sharing it around.

And actually it triggered a memory for me about a gift that I saw given in my family a few years ago. My sister-in-law and my brother were saving for a house – I started with my sister-in-law because this gift, as you’ll hear in a second, came mainly from her, not my brother. And one of the things they did for my mum and her mum was they created a memory jar. They handwrote 52 memories — one for each week of the year – of things they’d shared. Like that thing that happened on the ski holiday or whatever it might be. And it was beautifully wrapped, handed over, and it was just stories – one a week for an entire year that my mum could read and reread and enjoy.

And actually when we brought this up the other day about this memory jar that was gifted, my mum said “you know what, I’m going to start it again this year, just open the same jar, because the memories are still there.” So I think there’s something really nice about thinking about Christmas through the idea of stories and storytelling. And that’s a great way to connect with people.

Laura: I love the other element Paul talked about which is kind of bringing a bit of theatre to everything. Often it’s about the whole experience of the gift under the tree — what it’s evoking as much as the actual item itself. So wrapping it up in some kind of theme — like brown paper with big luscious ribbon — or I always try to put candy canes in all of mine because I think it just looks really good. But just creating a bit of theatre around that whole experience, so you really show that you’ve thought of every aspect of the gift. That’s so much more important than how much you actually spent on it.
Let’s have a quick listen to Paul talking about premiumisation.

[Paul clip plays:]

Paul: A really good example of it done very simply was Gordon’s Pink — sadly wasn’t my innovation when I was at Diageo, I was on Tanqueray, the second biggest. It was a category that kind of lost its va-va-voom in many ways. Lots of people like pink — you’ve only got to see the recent success of Barbie as a film. Simply by creating a beautiful pink drink that you could make at home — pink gin, tonic, slice of something in a beautiful round glass — that’s Instagrammable. Glassware is another absolutely fantastic way that we can do it. Beer does it better than spirits but it can also be done through spirits. If you want people to take photos of you, make it beautiful.

Adam: Okay, now we’ve got a real humdinger of a question. I sourced this from Nappy Valley and I laughed quite a lot for quite a while. So I’m going to put it to the expertise of our wonderful guests.
“My girlfriend and I live together and our relationship is serious — I fully expect we’ll get married. We’re both professionals with good careers. I saw a thread about spending Christmas apart from family, and while that’s not quite my issue, I have a related dilemma around family traditions during the holidays. My mum received a call from my grandmother last week. My grandparents host Boxing Day every year and my mother asked if my girlfriend would be okay with the usual traditions. She framed it in a way that was a bit loaded, saying something about how my girlfriend is known to be strong-willed and wondering if she might cause a scene. The tradition in question — citation needed if this is actually a tradition — is that the women in the family prepare lunch and then afterwards tidy and wash up while the men go for a walk, stop by the local pub for a drink and then come back to play party games. This has never been an issue before because the women in my family are mostly older and stay-at-home mums. However, my girlfriend feels very strongly about not participating in the tradition and said she’d much rather join the walk and skip the gender division of labour altogether.”

Adam: It sounds like a joke account, doesn’t it? Is it a troll account?

Laura: I hope it is. For this girl’s sake I really hope it is. But leaving aside gender politics, age divides and all those classic Christmas traditions — I think essentially what we’re looking at here is a way of trying to break a category norm. We’ve got a real challenger brand coming in saying there’s a different way to do things, and they have received a very warm welcome from the category head establishing that the rules of the category are not to be broken. So it’s a tricky one.

Adam: This makes me think of the Grant interview — which I think was our third in the series. I feel like this is about taking the little wins each year and kind of building on them. Demonstrating how a different way of doing things can actually also work, letting people see the wins, and then taking them on the journey. And that’s exactly what Grant did when he was at Asahi — where for seven years he was convincing his business to take advantage of the non-alcoholic opportunity which he spotted when he was working in Spain.

One of the key things he said was about giving and taking. One of the things he had to do was cut his marketing budget in one place in order to fund this in another. Just showing to the team that he was willing to make a sacrifice to make this happen. Let’s hear what Grant had to say.

[Grant clip plays:]

Grant: You still need that bit of “trust me, believe me, it will work.” And that was the hard part. Because the group that I worked for at corporate level didn’t believe in any of this. But I had — and this is where you need luck — you need luck that your boss or your management team gives you the benefit of the doubt. And that’s very subjective, not everybody has that in every job. But they let it run. And by the middle of year two they could say “okay, this is definitely not terrible — we’re not sure it’s brilliant, but it’s definitely not terrible.” And by year three — yeah, this is a good idea. And by year four everyone said “I told you it would work, I knew all along.”

Laura: Okay, another question. “This year we’re hosting quite a large party, but that’s including quite a few different personalities. We certainly have the typical extroverts but we’ve also got quite a few introverts and people who are a bit more thoughtful and quiet. How do I make sure everyone feels welcome this Christmas?” Well that’s a very thoughtful question. Someone’s already asked very nicely!

Adam: Yeah, I think that’s fab. I think I immediately think about the stuff we spoke to Alex about. So Alex O’Rourke — I think she was our second guest — and such an interesting guest. Someone who had thought a lot about the dynamics between people in her work as a coach, but also on herself — she spent a long time thinking about her personal brand and who she is and how she turns up in the workplace and her special powers and all that sort of stuff. Things I think everybody could kind of take note of.

But I think especially, the most relevant stuff for this particular question is what Alex was talking about around DISC. I’m not suggesting everybody now goes and encourages all of their Christmas guests to take their DISC profile

Laura: I think it would be great, but no, they won’t. But thinking about what colours people are — are they a dynamic kind of leader character, are they a thoughtful, data-driven, more meditative person, are they the one that wants everyone to get along and is very convivial, are they the kind of extrovert loud bubbly ideas person? What are all those interactions, and where can be the points of really lovely interaction, and where can be the points of some tension — especially when the turkey is a bit burnt or everyone’s had a glass too many.

Adam: Speak for yourself!

Adam: I think thinking about the different parts of the day and the different energies that come to the fore is really something Alex would say here.

Laura: So if you had an ideal scenario — you’d have the analytical Blues doing the day plan and probably the cooking timings,

Adam: sorting out the shopping list.

Laura: You’d have a Red overseeing the cooking — the direct leader — but you keep them in another room.

Adam: You need that turkey to hit the table at the right time, you need someone driving that.Absolutely.

Laura: Got the Yellows being very exuberant and coming up with all the party ideas. And then you’ve got the Greens just making sure everyone gets along and everyone’s got what they need.

Adam: Yeah absolutely. Let’s hear from Alex.

[Alex clip plays:]

Alex: I am very high yellow — which means very very high energy, full of ideas, full of enthusiasm. Chris on the other hand is very blue — he’s very in the detail, very organised, likes to know exactly what is happening and when. We complement each other because I’m very high energy and have lots of ideas, whereas he makes sure all those ideas happen and are executed brilliantly. But what that can also mean is that if I’m getting too yellow he finds it very frustrating, or if he’s trying to drag me too far into the detail I find that very frustrating. So when we do find each other bristling or prickling — which isn’t very often — it can normally be explained using DISC profiles and understanding if we’re leaning into one of our behavioural preferences too much or too little, and that’s rubbing each other up the wrong way.

Laura: The other thing to be aware of at Christmas is what the worst side of your profile is. That was something Alex encouraged us to reflect on when we were doing our training with her. What can be really lively and fun can become quite quickly slightly manic and shrill — I’ve heard some people have that, I don’t know who.

Adam: And equally, what some people might consider just being a leader and being on top of things could become sort of bossy and domineering. So just being aware of yourself and your interactions with others is probably the best way to navigate out of those Christmas tensions.

Adam: Definitely, definitely.

Laura: Lovely.

Laura: Okay, so now we have a lovely question from friend of the Forge, Jen White at Haley — not speaking in her capacity as an Innovation Director but purely from an observation about Christmas. “How do you go about merging different cultures and traditions at Christmas when you come from different places?” This came from a chat with friends in Austria who celebrate the 24th Austrian style and then the 25th British style.Oh, a lovely question.

Adam: Yeah, really lovely. And I think that’s becoming increasingly important isn’t it — the merging of cultures around Christmas. Personally I grew up in Singapore, so coming back from a hot country to a cold country — we’ve brought some of that kind of hot country stuff with us. If it were up to me I’d have a barbecue on Christmas Day.

Laura: So nice.

Adam: But yeah — I think immediately jumping again to what Jane said — Innovation Maestro — she said that the best innovations happen when you’re really mashing things up. Taking the best of one category, going to a category which is delivering one thing but can’t quite deliver another, and bringing them together — you end up with something which is kind of like the best of both. And it can be quite interesting. She gave us the example of Huel — the fact that Huel had gone from nutrition into kind of pot noodles ultimately — it meant that they could bring a nutritional story with them where the pot noodles of the world might struggle to talk about nutrition because they hadn’t got that as their brand story. So those mashups — if you’ve got an Austrian friend and a British friend bringing their two things together, some really special things can be created.

Let’s hear what Jane had to say.

[Jane Buck clip plays:]

Jane: Well I think for me that’s what innovation actually is — it’s mashups. Especially when you’re creating a new brand. Just building iteratively on existing stuff is not the big step-change way forward. Obviously there are all different levels of innovation, but something like that — to create new space, new momentum — you need to basically combine slightly opposing forces.

Laura: Do you have any mashup traditions already? I know you’d like a barbecue, but what do you actually have as a taste of Singapore on Christmas Day?

Adam: Well I just had my Christmas party and it’s become a tradition every year for me to cook a Christmas rendang.

Adam: Oh nice!

Laura: Yeah, so I do a scratch rendang — I use Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey book. And it’s the Indonesian rendang style rather than the Malaysian rendang style, so the slightly thicker sauce. And it is incredible. It’s become a tradition — the traditional Christmas rendang at the Christmas party.

Adam: That’s lovely. The kind of… well, Indonesian version of turkey curry.

Laura: My favourite. Yeah, turkey curry is another good one as well actually — after Christmas.

Adam: Yeah absolutely. How about you — have you got any mashups? I mean you spent some time in Singapore as well.

Laura: We have, although I did come back for absolutely every Christmas. But the reason was it’s my sister’s birthday on Christmas Day.

Adam: Wow.

Laura: So we have to squeeze in quite a lot of presents and more importantly quite a lot of food. And there’s often quite a lot of pressure on that. So I love the fact that I get to eat birthday cake for dessert on Christmas Day.

Adam: That’s great, that’s cool isn’t it. That’s a fun tradition.

Laura: That’s really good. There are still a few die-hards who are saying “no, I’ll have my Christmas pudding and then birthday cake” — but that’s a bridge too far for me.

Adam: So here’s a good one — “I’m going to the in-laws for Christmas for the first time and I’m worried it won’t be the same. What can I do?”

Laura: Interesting. Okay, well that’s something we all have to face sooner or later. And it’s obviously a time of a lot of introspection and melancholy — a lot of time we associate with doing things in a certain way. So I think it’s a completely valid question and one a lot of people can relate to. And it’s one where actually Nick Graham’s thoughts on what’s timely and what’s timeless are more relevant than ever. He worked with a lot of iconic brands and really thought about — when we say “this is what the brand stands for” — do we actually mean those specific things? Let’s hear what Nick had to say.

[Nick Graham clip plays:]

Nick: What I think they did really nicely again is that they went back with that sort of “let’s not be ashamed of the timeless spirit of this brand and the nostalgia of this brand, but how do we carefully reinvent that and use that to express the bold spirit of the brand in a way that also feels more contemporary?” So I think for most big brands — Pepsi, Cadbury — finding that right balance between leveraging nostalgia but not being old-fashioned, and again between being timeless and timely — to me that’s always the balancing act they need to manage.

Laura: I think what we can relate back to with Nick’s comments there is — let’s actually think about the roots of what Christmas is all about in terms of how you want to feel. What are some of the elements that you associate with Christmas and why are they meaningful? It can’t be an exact replica of the Christmases you’ve had before, but what are the things that make you feel like you’re evoking that spirit of what Christmas means for you?

So maybe there are some elements about bringing a particular tradition with you — maybe it’s a particular type of meal or something that you do and you can introduce that. But maybe it’s also thinking “I really love feeling a spirit of togetherness, so I want to make sure I have time for a FaceTime call” — or “I really love having music as part of it, so maybe we can all go carol singing.” It doesn’t have to be exactly the same thing. How can you capture the essence of what you want and what are you going to be willing to evolve in the future?

Adam: Yeah, I think that’s a really good thought Laura. Very very prescient.

Laura: What are some of the traditions you would never lose?

Adam: Oh that’s a good one. We’ve been quite innovative with Christmas over the years. I mean growing up in Singapore meant that sometimes you’d be at friends’ apartments rather than houses. You’d be in condominium blocks, swimming pools, barbecues. We’ve done dinner out. At one point my parents were sick of the kind of rush on Christmas Day so they moved Christmas dinner to Christmas Eve and we had spag bol on Christmas Day.

One year we had a major power cut in the southeast of England — I think it might have been around 2012 or 2013. Loads of homes were out of power for the whole Christmas break. And because our central heating system required power to turn on, we had no heating either. And actually we had to cook our Christmas dinner on a barbecue outside.

Laura: Was this like 1861?

Adam: No, this was like 2013! But it was one of the best Christmases ever because there was no internet, no TV, no heating — we had to just literally make our own fun with things like charades and the hat game.

Laura: I love the hat game, it’s a really good game. So I would say the tradition that I insist on keeping — which makes me sound like a really unfun mum — I am, I’m such a fun mum, I promise — but when we open stockings I make sure the kids take turns opening them. So they don’t just open them all at once — it’s one’s turn, the other’s turn, one’s turn, the other’s turn. And then I make them make a display of the presents, with the ones they like most at the front.

The reason is I used to have to do that for my grandma when she came over, and I actually really liked making displays because I was quite crafty. But also it genuinely made you appreciate the gifts twice — because you were like “oh yeah, I forgot in all the excitement I didn’t notice this thing but it’s really cool.” And then showing it to the grandparents and talking through how all the stuff worked — you felt a little bit important and it was just a really nice sharing moment. So I’ve tried really hard to get the kids to maintain that tradition. It is a process, especially with the younger one, but yeah — I think it’s a good habit to keep.

Adam: That’s really nice.

Laura: Okay, we’re going to on that note leave you with a playlist that has been created by Simon and is extremely excellent. So if you look at the links in the podcast you will find a selection of great songs to create the vibe. And I’m going to ask you Adam — what is your favourite Christmas song?

Adam: Oh so I’ve got three. Okay. I love Carol of the Bells from Home Alone — it’s just so atmospheric, it immediately makes me feel like Christmas. Number two — of course I love Fairytale of New York, that’s just a great duet and really fun to sing at karaoke when you’re really drunk. But number three — I think it came out last year and I love it — it’s SIA’s “Snowman.”

Laura: Oh yeah, that’s a good one. That is really nice. I am so pleased you say Carol of the Bells because my best friend from school is a really good choral singer and she has an amazing version of Carol of the Bells which I’m also going to put in the show link. It is really special — it’s really really good.
And then the others I would choose — I always think it’s a balance of being a bit cheesy but also being able to bear hearing it more than once, because it will inevitably be played more than once in the hour. So you’ve got to think hard about that. And I would say my second choice would be Santa Claus is Coming to Town sung by Bruce Springsteen — that is a really good version of a Christmas classic and he actually makes it sound aspirational and cool to wait for Santa.

Adam: I don’t think I actually know the one you’re talking about.

Laura: Oh it’s really good — check out the show notes. And then the final one is going to make me sound like such a loser that I remember this, but there was a movie called About a Boy which had a really good soundtrack all written by Badly Drawn Boy, and one of the songs is called Donna and Blitzen. It’s a properly Christmassy song but it doesn’t really get played at all. It’s got that magic of Christmas vibe — it’s sort of sparkly but it’s something you don’t hear outside of December, and probably don’t hear that much in December either. So I highly advocate for that one.

Adam: Um, well anyway that’s all we’ve got time for for this year. Very very excited about next year — we’ve got some big plans.

Laura: So I think what this has proven is that contrary to popular belief, strategy can actually get you out of quite a lot of problems in the practical real world.

Adam: Totally.

Laura: And I’m enormously grateful to all of our guests who have given us not only great advice for our jobs, but have potentially saved Christmas as well.

Adam: Cannot agree more.

Laura: We will be thinking about plans for next year while we enjoy our mulled wine and don’t step out of our pyjamas. If you are a senior insights or marketing professional and have enjoyed the podcast and would like to be a guest, please slide into our DMs — we would love to hear from you in our 2025 plans.

Adam: So yeah, we’re going to put our feet up, and we’ll be back on the 7th with a very special guest. Happy Christmas.

Adam: Thanks for listening. If you’d love to hear more from marketers, entrepreneurs and business leaders about how to use the art of persuasion to drive your business forward, then make sure you’re following the podcast in your favourite podcast app. And just one last ask from us — this is a new podcast and we’d love it if you could be persuaded to help us spread the word by telling somebody else about it, leaving us a review, or even better sharing an episode on social media. Search The Forge on LinkedIn.