How to celebrate a brand anniversary: Make it as fun and rewarding as any birthday

With more brands celebrating significant anniversaries, Hall & Partners’ Farid Jeawody looks at how brands can benefit from these milestones and engage consumers

Many of the world’s oldest brands have either celebrated or are about to mark a major milestone. In 2024 alone, Adidas commemorated 75 years of innovation and sporting history while Cadbury celebrated 200 years as Britain’s most popular chocolate brand; now the second largest confectionery company in the world. Nike recently toasted its half century, while Omega observed 30 years of its partnership with James Bond.

There’s no doubt that the decades or centuries of business that these brands have navigated successfully is a worthy milestone. But just how much should the brands make of the celebrations? Should the occasion become part of the brand strategy for the year? Or something to just nod to?

Make an anniversary about your customers, not just your brand

Successful campaigns put customers first. Think about why customers should even care about your brand anniversary and make it not just relevant to them but about them.

Easyjet provided a great example of putting customers first when it celebrated 20 years of making flying affordable. The company dived deep into its customer data to see what it could use to communicate its anniversary in a relevant way, instead of taking the self-congratulatory approach so frequently used by many brands.

It found inspiring, personal nuggets of information about its customers' journeys spanning two decades, and created a campaign based on these emotional customer-focused anniversary stories. This not only brought to life its customers’ travels in an innovative and creative way, but it added some fascinating facts about their travel behaviour and personal recommendations for future trips that would benefit other people too.

According to Campaign magazine, 7.5% of easyJet customers who received the fully personalised version across all markets went on to make a booking in the next 30 days. Conversion rates increased by nearly 30% for customers in Switzerland. Compared to promotional emails that were sent in the same time period the personal story was 14 times more effective in triggering an action in certain markets.

Explore and create brand experiences and partnerships not just campaigns

The Amsterdam-based, Dutch boutique sneaker brand Patta partnered with Nike to celebrate its 20th anniversary last year. Patta has grown from its roots as a boutique sneaker shop into a multifaceted brand whose creations and community initiatives speak to the core of modern sneaker culture. The two brands collaborated on an exclusive release of the iconic Patta and Nike Air Max 1 Chlorophyll, one of the most coveted Air Max 1 collaborations of all time.

Paddy Power, the betting brand, marked its 30th anniversary in 2018 with a Museum of Mischief in Dublin. The experience was focused on a super-charged pop-up, which gave consumers a jaunt through the brand’s back-catalogue of irreverent marketing. Each evening, Ireland’s premier interviewer Eamon Dunphy went head-to-head with leading sports personalities including Boys In Green record goal-scorer Robbie Keane. The exhibition included an Amazon-themed petting zoo, which recalled Paddy Power’s 2014 ‘shave the rainforest’ stunt by featuring animals rescued from the Amazon, including a real crocodile, python, and a skink. Among other experiences, a ‘Lucky Pants’ lab marked the various versions of Paddy Power’s iconic underwear and a ‘Department of Complaints’ housed the brand’s most complained-about adverts and stunts of all time.

Such a fun exhibition will have delighted consumers and cemented Paddy Power as an Irish institution.

These experiences should be aligned with core brand values and bring something new to the party. Brands need to find the sweet spot between shared and borrowed values to ensure growth.

Look to the future, not just the past

Tapping into the past can evoke a multitude of memories and positive emotions such as nostalgia and happiness anchors for brands, but they need to be careful to use events and eras that are relevant to their diverse audience.

Namechecking Nike again - this time for its own milestone - the sports apparel behemoth celebrated its 50th anniversary with the ‘Seen It All’ campaign, directed by, and starring, American film director Spike Lee. In the ‘film’ Lee reprised the role of Mars Blackmon, from his 1986 film ‘She’s Gotta Have It’, alongside actress Indigo Hubbard-Salk who starred in the TV-series remake of the film.

The pair debated the past and the future of sports, paying homage to the world’s biggest sporting legends including Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and new talent such as Naomi Osaka, Sabrina Ionescu and Chloe Kim. It was supported by content across digital and social media. The campaign delivered the highest traffic ever recorded to its shopping apps.

An opportunity to innovate

A focus on the future also provides brands with an opportunity to use anniversaries to showcase new innovations to consumers and demonstrate how they help to meet their needs and desires.

​​To celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2020, jewellery brand Pandora launched new collections to highlight its craftsmanship and design prowess. Initiatives included 12 limited edition charms, released on the 20th of each month throughout the year; these became collectors’ items, with the first three designs selling out within an hour. The move gave the company an edge during the challenging retail environment resulting from Covid-19, momentum that continued into 2021, when annual organic sales increased 23%. The campaign also helped Pandora to appeal to younger consumers, paving the way for future growth.

Cadbury’s marked its 200th anniversary with several drives: a limited-edition of its iconic Dairy Milk bar featured retro packaging with collectable designs that emulated its rich history and heritage; its ‘Generations of Generosity’ TV advert reinforced the brand’s enduring appeal and emotional connection across the ages; and the brand’s partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK, coupled withMemory Bars aimed at sparking memories for those living with dementia, showed its commitment to being socially responsible.

Be disruptive and different

Brands should recognise key anniversaries both internally and externally, but any communication campaigns and initiatives need to be disruptive and different. Investing the time to consider which part of the brand's history and future are relevant for today’s consumers, and how these can be brought to life, can accelerate customer engagement, loyalty and brand growth.

Like any good birthday party, the host needs to make a milestone anniversary more about their guests or customers than themselves - while using it as a springboard to the future, not just a look to the past.