We Often Say Brand Touchpoints Matter, Especially During the Holidays. So We Went to Reddit to Remind People Why.

Holiday marketing advice usually comes from marketers, so for this article we decided to listen somewhere a little less polished.

We went to Reddit. Shall we dare tell you what we found? We had a little too much fun reading candid complaints, unexpectedly enthusiastic praise, oddly specific memories, and years-old stories people are apparently still carrying around about brands during the holidays. Naturally, we wanted to share our observations. Let’s dive in.

One person described receiving emails from a retailer so frequently that they eventually blocked the company — while also admitting that with a more selective approach, they might have remained subscribed indefinitely. In other conversations, employees complained about corporate gifts that felt more like advertising than appreciation. Then, almost immediately, we found people fondly discussing branded pullovers, thermoses, bags, drinkware, and other items they had continued using for years.

Apparently, everyone hates company swag until the company swag is actually good.

There were complaints about generic Christmas messages sent simply because someone decided prospects needed a Christmas message. There were frustrations with holiday marketing that felt overly manufactured or intent on turning the entire season into a reason to buy something. But people were also enthusiastic about thoughtful food gifts, useful products, experiences, handwritten notes, personalization, and objects that had a reason for being selected.

One example stood out in particular. A marketer described moving away from the usual fruit-and-nut gift baskets and sending customized herb garden kits built around a growth theme instead. The recipient still received a corporate gift, but the idea had a point of view. It connected the object to a larger idea and reportedly generated significant word-of-mouth.

That combination of complaints and praise tells us something more interesting than “people like nice gifts” or “people hate too many emails.”

It shows why the holidays are one of the moments when a strong brand system becomes especially valuable.

The Holidays Create More Decisions, Not Different Rules

Holiday activity increases quickly. There may be more email, more social content, more packaging, more gifting, more events, more promotions, more internal communication, more customer service needs, more physical materials, and more people weighing in on what the company should do.

That increase in activity can create the impression that the usual brand considerations are temporarily less important because everything is seasonal.

In reality, this is when they become more useful.

A strong brand system gives the organization a way to evaluate all of those additional decisions without starting from zero each time. It helps determine what belongs, what can flex, what feels appropriate for the audience, and what may technically be festive but simply does not make sense for the company.

Without that reference point, assumptions start filling the space. Competitors become examples to copy. Traditional holiday conventions become requirements. Someone saw another company do something and thinks yours should do it too. Someone else has a very passionate opinion about what constitutes an appropriate amount of sparkle.

Holiday enthusiasm is wonderful. It should not accidentally become the brand strategy.

The Email Complaint Was Not Really About Email

The Reddit complaints about increased holiday communication were useful because the obvious interpretation would be to conclude that brands should simply email less.

That misses the more interesting point.

The person who eventually blocked the retailer did not object to hearing from the brand altogether. They indicated that a more selective approach could have kept them subscribed. Somewhere along the way, communication that had once been welcome crossed into an experience that felt intrusive.

That distinction matters.

During the holidays, brands may have legitimate reasons to communicate more often. Shipping windows close. Inventory changes. Events happen. Offers expire. Customers may actually appreciate reminders because the information helps them make decisions.

The problem arises when increased frequency is not accompanied by increased value.

A strong brand system helps a company ask whether the way it communicates during a high-volume period still reflects the relationship it has spent the rest of the year establishing. A brand known for restraint should be careful about suddenly behaving frantically. A company built around helpfulness should make sure additional messages remain helpful. A high-touch organization should notice when useful communication begins feeling automated and relentless.

The answer is not a universal email frequency.

The answer is knowing how your brand should behave when it suddenly has much more to say.

The Swag Debate Was More Interesting Than “Logo or No Logo”

Corporate merchandise produced some of the strongest opinions we found.

Some people were openly annoyed by gifts that appeared to exist primarily so the company could put its logo on another object. Others talked happily about branded products they had kept, worn, or used for years.

The difference was not necessarily the presence of the logo.

It was whether the item had value without relying on the logo to create it.

Useful, well-made, desirable merchandise earned a very different reaction from disposable objects that felt like leftovers from a promotional catalog. A branded pullover someone loves wearing is not experienced the same way as an item someone has no use for simply because both contain a company mark.

That is why promotional merchandise absolutely has a role in holiday branding. It can be thoughtful, desirable, useful, memorable, and completely appropriate for the relationship.

The Reddit reactions simply reinforce the importance of asking why the item belongs there.

A strong brand system helps answer that question. It gives the organization context for quality, audience, usefulness, aesthetic, tone, and the type of relationship being acknowledged. The decision becomes more sophisticated than “Should the logo be on this?”

The better question is whether the entire experience makes sense coming from the brand.

Generic Holiday Activity Feels Generic for a Reason

Another recurring frustration was holiday communication that seemed to exist because companies believed they were supposed to send it.

The generic Christmas email to every prospect. The obligatory client gift. The seasonal campaign with familiar language but very little connection to the organization using it.

This is not an argument against traditional holiday gestures. Sometimes a simple holiday message is exactly right. Sometimes a classic gift is perfect. Sometimes there is absolutely no need to reinvent anything.

But audiences can often sense the difference between simplicity and autopilot.

If the only rationale for an initiative is “companies do this during the holidays,” the result can easily become interchangeable with what everyone else is doing.

That is where a strong brand system protects something more important than visual consistency: distinctiveness.

The holidays are one of the easiest times for brands to become more generic precisely because everyone is drawing from the same seasonal references, language, promotional habits, and traditions at the same time.

The opportunity is not to avoid those things completely. It is to interpret them through something recognizably your own.

The Herb Garden Worked Because the Idea Had a Reason

The customized herb garden kits built around a growth theme are a good example of why surface-level copying is rarely useful.

The takeaway is not that companies should start sending herb gardens.

The interesting part is why the idea appears to have worked.

There was an underlying concept. The object supported the concept. The gift was different enough to create a memory. The recipient could understand why that particular company might have chosen it. Most importantly, it gave people something to talk about beyond the fact that a package arrived.

That is strategic coherence.

Another company could send the exact same herb garden and create almost no impact because the idea may have no relationship to its audience, personality, values, or context.

This is one of the most important distinctions when interpreting brand feedback: do not copy the evidence when what you actually need to understand is the reason.

A tumbler somebody loved does not mean you need a tumbler. A handwritten note somebody remembered does not mean every executive needs to spend December developing carpal tunnel. An experience somebody talked about for years does not mean every company needs to create an elaborate holiday excursion.

What matters is what made the gesture work.

This Is Why We Like Qualitative Research

We have always valued qualitative research at Robyn & Robyn because people tend to reveal something useful when they are talking naturally about an experience rather than being asked to formally evaluate one. They tell you what annoyed them, what surprised them, what they kept, what they thought was ridiculous, and what they are apparently still telling strangers on the internet about several years later.

Reddit is not a representative sample of every customer, employee, vendor, or client, nor were we treating it as one. What makes conversations like these useful is the opportunity to identify recurring reactions and then look underneath them.

Qualitative feedback tells you what people experienced. Strategy determines what that feedback actually means for your brand.

That distinction matters because the person describing the experience does not need to know the strategic solution in order for their reaction to be valuable.

Someone can accurately tell you that your communication became irritating without knowing what your future communication cadence should be. Someone can tell you a gift felt impersonal without knowing what you should buy next year. Someone can explain why an experience felt unusually thoughtful without being able to identify the collection of brand decisions that made it work.

Their reaction is information.

The interpretation is where strategy begins.

What People Liked Was Surprisingly Consistent

The positive Reddit conversations were particularly useful because the things people appreciated were not necessarily elaborate.

They talked about useful, high-quality objects that stayed in rotation rather than becoming clutter. They liked personalization and choice when it made the experience feel more relevant. They remembered experiences with a story attached. Thoughtful food, local treats, and consumable gifts came up repeatedly. Smaller gestures such as handwritten notes also received surprisingly strong praise.

Different tactics, same underlying pattern.

The experience felt intentional.

That is important because “intentional” does not automatically mean expensive. A high-budget gesture can still feel impersonal, while something comparatively modest can feel remarkably considered when the recipient understands why it was chosen.

There is a tendency during the holidays to equate impact with scale. Bigger campaign. Bigger gift. Bigger sale. Bigger event.

But some of the most memorable examples people shared were memorable because the company appeared to have paid attention.

That is a very different investment.

Strong Brand Systems Help Teams Interpret, Not Imitate

This is ultimately where the Reddit findings connect back to brand infrastructure.

A strong brand system is sometimes treated as though its primary job is to keep the logo correct and the colors consistent.

Those things matter, but the larger value appears when the organization has to make decisions.

During the holidays, those decisions multiply. Should we participate in this promotion? Is this tone appropriate? Does this gift make sense? Should the event feel formal or playful? How much urgency belongs in our communication? Does this seasonal trend fit us? What parts of the identity should flex? What needs to remain recognizable?

A useful brand system gives teams a framework for interpreting the answers rather than borrowing somebody else’s.

That matters even more when feedback enters the conversation.

If customers say they value personalization, a strong brand does not automatically personalize everything. It determines where personalization would genuinely improve its particular experience.

If people complain about holiday promotion overload, the company does not necessarily become silent. It decides what useful visibility looks like for its audience.

If another company gets wonderful word-of-mouth from a clever gift, leadership does not simply ask marketing to find its own version of the same object.

The system helps turn information into judgment.

That is where it begins earning its keep.

Look at the Whole Seasonal Experience

A holiday campaign can be perfectly on-brand while the gifting program feels unrelated. The gifting can be thoughtful while the email strategy becomes exhausting. An event may be wonderful while the website suddenly looks like it belongs to an entirely different company.

Every individual decision may have someone responsible for it.

The audience experiences the accumulation.

That is why it is worth stepping back before the season accelerates and looking at the pattern. What are people going to encounter more frequently from the organization? Where are new brand touchpoints appearing? Which decisions are being made by different departments or vendors? Where might enthusiasm, urgency, or tradition pull the experience away from what people already recognize?

A strong system does not require every touchpoint to look identical. It gives them a shared logic.

That is what allows a company to do more without becoming less recognizable.

Give People Something Worth Remembering

Reddit certainly gave us plenty of complaints. It is Reddit, after all.

But the positive stories may have been more revealing.

People remembered the things that were useful enough to keep, thoughtful enough to mention, personal enough to feel meaningful, or unusual enough to become a story. They did not seem to require brands to create enormous holiday spectacles. They responded to experiences that felt considered and appropriate to the relationship.

That is perhaps the most useful takeaway from all of this.

The objective is not simply to avoid annoying people during the holidays. It is to create more opportunities for people to experience the brand positively while activity is already increasing.

A strong brand system helps leadership and creative teams understand which opportunities belong, which ones do not, and how to participate in the season without defaulting to whatever every other company has decided December is supposed to look like.

The holidays give brands more places to show up, more decisions to make, and more opportunities to create something people will talk about long after the season ends.

A strong system helps make sure those stories are worth telling.

That is where it earns its keep.