The Creative Alliance, Strategic Marketing, Interactive, Public Relations

Fourth of July

What did you do on the Fourth? For most of us, I’d hazard to guess it was some mix of a barbecue, a parade, perhaps, some time in the sun, fireworks, with a little red-white-and-blue bunting thrown in for good measure. It requires no special genius to divine, of course – that’s the thing about the Fourth, and other national holidays. They represent some of the increasingly few times that the U.S. population shares a kind of communal experience.

Throughout our history, in fact, the Fourth has been leveraged to spread messages among the populace. The launching of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad on July 4, 1828 was a forceful way of making people feel good about the march of technology, tying it to our most patriotic holiday. (Ninety-year-old Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid the cornerstone.) By selecting the Fourth of July, 1946 to grant independence to the Philippines, an American colony since 1899, the country aimed to shore up its image as a globally beneficent leader.

In a communications context, a widely-shared experience like the Fourth is actually a powerful reminder of the decidedly fragmented environment in which we work and live. Now more than ever, the magic is in the mix—the marketing mix. Print communications, in their myriad formats, for general and highly-targeted audiences; websites—macro and micro; community events; merchandising; outdoor advertising; PR—they’re all essential at different times and different ways to reach our customers and prospects when they’re not conveniently lined up on Main Street to hear what we, as marketers and communicators, have to say.