Bringing "Christmas" marketing back under pressure from Christian religious organizations.

[quote:6c05395b7c][b:6c05395b7c]Wal-Mart, other retailers revive Christmas marketing[/b:6c05395b7c]

Anne D’Innocenzio | the Associated Press
Posted November 10, 2006

NEW YORK—This holiday season, Wal-Mart isn’t trumpeting big bargains only. It’s also bringing "Christmas" back into its marketing, after several years of playing down the term.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Christmas cheer seems to be a hot trend this season as several other retailers including Kohl’s Corp. and Macy’s, a division of Federated Department Stores Inc., are also stepping up their Christmas marketing.

The moves respond to mounting criticism from religious groups that staged boycotts against Wal-Mart and other merchants after they eliminated or de-emphasized "Christmas" in their advertising.[/quote:6c05395b7c]

Although they claim to encourage other sorts of religious speech, clearly this was fomented by conservative Christian organizations, knowing well that they are in the majority.

I’ve also noticed Starbucks Christmas marketing appears a lot more ‘Christmasy’ this year (in one illustration a child is placing a star on top of a tree). I don’t think Starbucks is doing it because of any pressure from religious organizations though. What ever the reason is, I don’t see any harm in it, I actually like it.

Yeah, I don’t want to make too much of it; I enjoy holidays as much as the next person, and frankly Santa Claus and a Christmas tree doesn’t say Christianity to me so much as it does paganism and the Winter Solstice ...

But what I object to is caving in to conservative Christian pressure. This is particularly problematic with Wal-Mart; their family is one of the biggest funders of these sorts of causes. When this sort of move is made in response to pressure, it sends entirely the wrong message.

Update: I was just in a Starbucks, and while they do have a “Christmas Blend” coffee, it looks like the vast preponderance of their signage is of the “holiday” variety. (They even have a “Holiday Blend” coffee in addition to the “Christmas Blend”, I guess to entice those not celebrating Christmas?)

Again, I don’t want to make too much of this stuff, but just FYI.

Ah but BEST BUY has not crumbled in the face of threats of boycott from AFA. They have decided to eliminate Merry Christmas advertising and toss all Christmas references out this year.
So shop at Best Buy and tell them why you are there.
Jim

I have an issue of any one corporation having a “stance” as to what to say in the required season.

Say merry christmas, happy hannuka, happy kwanza, or happy holidays.  Just be pleasant, and try to remember not everyone is “christian”.  As an atheist I’m not going to attack the first 90 year old walmart greeter that gives me a glory filled “Merry Christmas”, but I think I would have walked into a horror film if everyone inside said the exact same thing like automatons.

[quote author="omen"]I have an issue of any one corporation having a “stance” as to what to say in the required season.

I think that’s fair enough. But corporations are forced to take some stances when, e.g., printing up banners and flyers. They have to say something, after all.

They also may take principled stances of telling their employees to recall that not everyone is Christian, so not everyone is necessarily well served by “Merry Christmas”. Of course, that shouldn’t be to disallow the greeting (I don’t think anyone is advocating that), but just to be more sensitive and open to other belief systems.