How to overcome messaging fatigue this holiday season

Ever since retail brands started directing holiday marketing budgets to pack emotional punch into their Christmas ads, the UK festive season has been dominated by heartfelt moments, picture-perfect families, and lavish entertaining for loved ones.

But for many, this doesn’t reflect their emotional or economic reality. Against a backdrop of rising costs and relentless campaigning, one-note holiday messaging can feel out of touch.

Here’s why—and how—to personalize your messaging for genuine connection this holiday season, from Black Friday to the January sales.

Why is festive messaging falling flat in 2025?

After a decade of wistful moongazers, somnolent bears, and misunderstood houseplants tugging at our heartstrings, public attitudes towards holiday messaging are changing. One-third of British consumers are ambivalent to the campaigns that brands pour millions into.

Rising living costs and financial strain mean, for some, these carefully crafted moments of ‘joy’ feel unrepresentative and sometimes cynical, creating feelings of pressure, frustration, and guilt. Especially as 23% of consumers are planning to spend less over the holiday season this year.

Meanwhile, Black Friday has snowballed from a single day, to a week, to a ‘season’ all of its own. While many welcome saving money on gifts, for others, it makes the holiday period feel like a marathon of spending and commercialisation.

So what can brands do to be sensitive to these diverse viewpoints, stay front of mind, and create genuine customer connections this holiday season and beyond?

For Braze users, the good news is that you’re already equipped to make and maintain more meaningful connections. For everyone else, these evergreen customer engagement tactics offer a head start on the next holiday season. And they’re not just for Christmas…

Segment audiences for better targeting

The flagship Christmas TV ad is, by design, a broadcast – a blanket message to millions of people, all with differing realities. Your messaging doesn’t have to be. Start with segmentation, creating more nuanced customer groups for more precisely targeted messaging. For example:

• Past spending patterns – luxury vs value-driven shoppers
• Product or category affinities – haircare vs makeup
• Engagement levels – brand loyalists vs past browsers
• Demographics – single people vs families with children

Segmentation can help relieve the sense of frustration that 21% of people feel due to irrelevant messaging. Done well, segmentation feels like getting the perfect gift, the feeling that someone ‘just gets you’.

Personalise to reduce pressure

Personalisation should make shopping easier by showcasing the perfect gifts and offers to consumers. Avoid the hard sell that can alienate anyone who’s feeling the pinch.

• Showcase deals on past categories to increase relevance
• Reduce decision fatigue with curated collections, not your whole catalogue
• Be mindful of financial pressures and highlight budget-appropriate options
• Lead with stress-relieving benefits, like ‘Christmas all wrapped up’
• For value-driven shoppers, reinforce that ‘thoughtful beats expensive’

Personalization can reduce the risk of audiences feeling pressured into spending beyond their means – which one in five do – or guilt that they can’t buy more.

Manage channel and cadence

Like an old friend you only see over the holidays, genuine connections are about quality, not quantity. When 21% of people feel frustrated by excessive messaging, there’s a risk of disengagement and unsubscribes. To avoid this:

• Choose the right channels to reach different audiences where they engage most
• And for different purposes – eg email for catalogue browsing, SMS for delivery news
• Experiment with different cadences to see which motivates highest engagement
• Be mindful of timing – a 2am notification ‘ping’ feels intrusive vs during the day

If you want to turn messaging overwhelm into a warm welcome this holiday season, the right channels, timing, and cadence count.

Use AI for more human connection

It may seem paradoxical but AI can make your messages seem more human this holiday season, by automatically assessing customer sentiment and adjusting tone accordingly.

• Splashing the cash – lean into festive messaging and full-priced products
• Browsing the sale and discount sections – celebrate their savvy shopping
• Abandoned carts and indecision – reassure and offer incentives

Save savings for those who need them

Not every customer needs discounts to convert, and not every brand can afford to give them. Use customer data to determine the best way to incentivize action rather than defaulting to blanket markdowns.

• Identify customers who don’t typically need discounts to convert and consider alternative value propositions such as bundles or free shipping
• For value-driven shoppers, use dynamic discounting based on past conversions, to avoid unnecessarily deep cuts and margin loss

Acknowledge emotional diversity

Not everyone has a bustling family life or packed social calendar – and 8% of people feel lonelier because of Christmas campaigns that remind them. Acknowledging this can strengthen trust by showing emotional intelligence.

• Use empathy to recognise the challenges of the season
• Acknowledge that joy comes in different shapes and sizes
• Encourage social connection within the community

Final thoughts: engage EVERY customer this holiday season

For many, the UK holiday season is a slog, not a season; marked by financial pressure and emotional strain as much as joy and cheer. One-note holiday campaigns simply can’t cut it.

While some brands continue to shout louder and pile on the festive pressure, others are leaning in and listening, to tailor their messaging to customers’ unique financial and emotional circumstances.

‘Behind every campaign is a real human being with hopes, fears, constraints, and pressures,’ says Georgia Harrison, GM UK&I at Braze. ‘When brands lean on one-size-fits-all messaging year after year, they’re not just missing the mark; they’re contributing to real emotional strain.’

Let’s do better for our customers – and brand – this year with campaigns that reflect and respect the messy reality of the holiday season.

• Emotionally intelligent messaging tailored to shoppers’ signals
• Truly stress-relieving suggestions that make gifting easier
• Budget-appropriate recommendations to suit every shopper

Optimize your holiday messaging with Braze

Braze powered 59.9 billion messages over the four day Black Friday/Cyber Monday period. See how we did it and maintained a 100% uptime. Read the blog today.

Forward-Looking Statements

This blog post contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding the performance of and expected benefits from Braze and its products and features, including without limitation BrazeAI Decisioning Studio™. These forward-looking statements are based on the current assumptions, expectations and beliefs of Braze, and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Further information on potential factors that could affect Braze results are included in the Braze Annual Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2025, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 5, 2025, and the other public filings of Braze with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this blog post represent the views of Braze only as of the date of this blog post, and Braze assumes no obligation, and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.