When Christmas rolls around, brands scramble for attention. Pushing more ads, more noise, more offers during an already commercial-heavy time of year. But the ones who win aren’t shouting the loudest; they’re tapping into something deeper: memory. Nostalgia is your brand’s most powerful shortcut to engagement, especially at Christmas.

So maybe ‘do’ be a Grinch in a way, because this is why Dr Seuss’ social media has exploded. The Grinch character has been a seasonal icon for decades, and the Dr Seuss team has revived him for a modern audience on the right platforms. Memes, parodies, trending sounds and reaction videos all work because it’s a character we already have emotional equity in.

The lesson for brands: You don’t always need something new. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can use is what people already love about you.

1. Nostalgia + relevance = unstoppable engagement

Nostalgia alone isn’t enough. You can’t just add an old mascot to your content and expect it to go viral. The real magic happens when a nostalgic asset is placed inside a current cultural moment. That’s what The Grinch’s social team nailed:

• A beloved holiday character
• In modern social formats
• Speaking the internet’s language

It’s childhood meets TikTok culture, and audiences can’t resist it. Your brand likely has something similar, such as a founder story, an old logo, a memorable campaign, a signature product, or even a colour palette. Pair it with today’s content formats, and you’ll unlock relevance without losing identity.

2. Christmas is peak nostalgia season

People don’t scroll the same way in December. They’re receptive to emotional storytelling, memories, tradition, and character-led content. Everything slows down, and sentimentality spikes.

This creates a unique opportunity for brands to:

• Revisit their origins
• Recall their ‘firsts’
• Re-share iconic visuals
• Bring back fan-favourite products
• Tap into rituals, traditions, or seasonal memories

If your brand has history, heritage, or recognisable assets, now is the time to bring them out of the archive. In other months, nostalgia can feel random. In December, it feels right at home.

3. Mascots are out, live-action is in

Not every brand has a Grinch, or even a mascot. But even if you do, it’s essential to recognise that the era of flat, ‘mascot-for-mascots-sake’ content no longer has an impact. Today’s audiences want human energy. That’s why the live-action Grinch trend performed so well:

• Live-action characters outperform static mascots
• Real people in costume drive higher engagement
• Human expressions = more memeable, reactive, and shareable
• Characters can participate in culture, not just represent the brand.

Don’t retire your mascot. Evolve it. Humanise it. Put it into the real world. If you don’t have a character at all, every brand has something that can act as a nostalgic anchor:

• A long-standing product
• A classic tagline
• A founder’s personality
• A recurring motif
• A beloved customer story
• An early brand memory you can retell

Brands and their characters like Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger and Coco the Monkey, McDonald’s Clown and Hamburglar, Birdseye’s Silver Captain, and Pop Bears’ Golden Bear are opportunities that will soon be missed if they don’t act quickly. To you, these might be ‘the old stuff’, to your audience it’s comfort, recognition, and trust.

4. Content that helps you connect across generations

The Grinch revival worked because it hit two audiences at once:

• Younger audiences discovered a fun, culturally fluent character
• Older audiences revisited a childhood icon they instantly recognised

This duality is powerful. Nostalgic assets let you speak to multiple generations in one stroke, and something hyper-modern content rarely achieves. Your brand might not have a multi-generational icon yet, but you can start building one by creating recurring, recognisable elements people associate with your identity.

5. Use your heritage

Most brands over-focus on what’s next: new campaigns, new visuals, new messages. But your past holds more equity than you think. By not leveraging nostalgia at Christmas, you’re missing out on:

• Higher emotional engagement
• Stronger brand recall
• Easier content creation
• Better shareability
• Richer, more meaningful storytelling

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You need to remind people why they engage with or buy from you.

In summary

Christmas is the one moment where audiences crave familiarity. So if you haven’t already, take this chance to lean into the emotional, the nostalgic, the recognisable. Whether you’re reviving an old brand element or simply retelling your story through a seasonal lens, nostalgia isn’t just a strategy. It’s a competitive edge.

If you need support bringing this to life, get in touch. Let’s have a chat about what this could look like for your brand.