Seasonal Fundraising Campaigns

Seasonality is one of the many areas in which localization of trends matters most. And while 1st quarter may not be peak activity for most markets, what happens in the first 90 days of the markets shown here tends to dictate the rest of the year more so than most markets. Nationally, roughly 20% of the year's full rent growth can be explained by what happens in 1st quarter. But in some places like San Jose, 1st quarter actually tends to make up about half of the full year total. Conversely, a market like Detroit sees <10% of its annual growth informed by those first 90 days. With that context then, let's look at some markets where 1st quarter may tell us a lot about what's to come later this year. All the market's shared here see 1Q make up a larger share of the local annual growth rate than the national average. Thus, we can use 1st quarter to get more of a sense of momentum. The Bay Area is probably the best example of 1Q trajectory. And in 1Q26, we saw that the trio of Bay Area metros recorded Q/Q rent growth that was greater than the typical baseline. Simple extrapolation of 1Q26 suggests all Bay Area markets have a good chance of exceeding 4% annual growth this year. Chicago surprised me. Not because its 1Q26 was strong, but the surprise is that 1Q tends to make up a decent chunk of full year rent growth. On the flipside, South Florida (Miami & Fort Lauderdale) will have some work to do to make up for softer-than-usual 1Q performance. Though to be fair, those two markets also see 4Q typically hold firm relative to the rest of the year, so their seasonality is actually more evenly spread throughout the year. It's basically the snowbird effect showing up in the data. But the market that stood out most to me was Seattle. Seattle - like the Bay Area - tends to be heavily front loaded. Best I can tell, this has to do with the big tech sectors in those markets and related hiring patterns (plus milder weather). Regardless, Seattle's 0.1% growth in 1Q26 puts the market nearly 150 bps behind its usual trajectory. So unless 2Q26 wows, or unless 3Q/4Q avoid the typical slowdown then that metro may be at risk of missing the mark for the year. Though I'll add one additional layer of nuance in that current softening looks to be more of a Class B and Class C trend in that metro.

Back-to‑School 2025: A CPG Guy’s POV 🎒 As we turn the page on summer and step into August, back‑to‑school season officially begins—only this year, CPG brands are playing on turf that’s tighter than ever. The New York Times reports fierce inflation and rising tariffs are squeezing parents—many say BTS shopping is pushing them into debt or forcing sacrifices on essentials like groceries. What we’re watching at The CPG Guys: ✅ Budget fatigue is real. Deloitte projects families will spend around $570 per child, flat from 2024—but price pressure is forcing parents to prioritize strictly essentials over “nice‑to‑have” items. ✅ Shoppers are value-seeking veterans. 75% say they’ll switch brands if price feels too high; they’re hunting bulk deals, private label options, and spreading out purchases across promotions like Prime Day and sales tax holidays. ✅ Stress sells—but with caveats. Brands for cleaning, food‑storage, and snacks are tapping into parent anxieties—minimizing food waste, keeping kids healthy—but savvy marketers know that authenticity matters more than fear-based messaging. From a CPG marketer’s lens, here’s how to lean in: 🔹 Activate around deal windows Mid‑July promotions, state tax‑free weekends, and value-focused bundles (think “Buy 5 Save $5,” family‑size multi‑packs) are must-win moments. 🔹 Simplify and rationalize the offer Make shopping quick and predictable. Value packs (PPA), bundle pricing, subscription options, and clear messaging on longevity/responsibility win trust—and shelf space. 🔹 Layer marketing with empathy Highlight emotional routines—first‑day breakfasts, teacher gratitude, or snack-time smiles. Pair helpful tips like lunchbox prep or reducing waste with product placements grounded in genuine concern (not alarmism). 🔹 Reach shopping-ready audiences with intent Parents now shop online, in-store, across apps—and often research across mobile, social and web before buying. Brands that use intent-based targeting can find consumers mid‑search (“school snacks,” “lunch ideas,” “germ care kits”) and deliver relevant solutions before they leave the digital aisle. Key takeaways for BTB and B2C brands working this window: ⌚️Timing is everything - Shoppers spend early; promotions in mid-July set the tone 📦 Bundles and value packs - Higher volume, lower per-unit price—ideal for budget‑savvy families 😍 Emotional + practical messaging - Build trust without panic; show you understand the juggle 🛍️ Omnichannel, intent-based outreach - Find parents where they plan (social, search, email) & drive conversion #backtoschool2025 #cpgguys #omnichannel #valuedriven

Brands think back to school is only relevant if you sell backpacks or lunch boxes. Wrong. Fall is a time when people reset their habits. Your customers are: - Rebuilding routines - Buying more intentionally - Open to “systems” that simplify life This is prime time for: Supplements → “Feel sharp without caffeine crashes” Apparel → “Your new uniform for the office or classroom” Home goods → “Declutter your space, sharpen your mind” Fitness → “Your fall training stack starts here” It’s not just about school. It’s about structure, rhythm, and change. Speak to the mindset, not just the date on the calendar.

Abu Auf proves that with the right approach, packaging could be the consumer’s “reason to buy” Take their recent back-to-school package: • Snacks presented in the shape of a pencil ✏️ for the back to school season & When the snacks are gone, the package turns into a coloring sheet. And this isn’t a one-off idea. Over the summer, they launched the Munch Box, a curated selection of their snacks, positioned as the perfect fit for picnics, gatherings, and summer outings. What these examples show is that packaging is being used strategically, not just functionally. Here’s why it works: 1. Relevance to the moment/their consumer The packaging ties into cultural or seasonal contexts (back-to-school, summer picnics), making it feel timely and thoughtful. 2. Added value without changing the product The snacks remain the same, but the packaging creates new excitement and meaning. 3. Engagement beyond consumption A coloring sheet or a sharing box extends the brand experience even after the product is gone. This kind of packaging builds memory, loyalty, and differentiation. It turns a cost center into a growth driver. That shows that they have their consumer in the center of everything they do. Abu Auf designs with the consumer’s life, context, and moments in mind making people feel understood, supported, and engaged. That’s what transforms packaging into strategy. If packaging can drive purchase this way… why do so many brands still treat it as an afterthought? Any brands you have in mind that have a similar to their strategy? #strategy #brand #strategic #branding #love #marketeer #marketing #localbrands #local

See how easily you can project monthly volumes, predict your business's revenue patterns with precision and plan your production and budget accordingly. Understanding and calculating the seasonality of your revenue can transform how you manage your financial planning. Why Measure Average Volume Demand? Measuring the average volume demand helps you identify patterns in your demand over different periods. By recognizing these patterns, you can adjust your forecasts and budgets to reflect more accurate expectations, preventing potential issues like overcapacity or underproduction. Steps to Calculate Average Seasonality: 1. Collect Data: Gather historical revenue data for multiple years. 2. Calculate Monthly Averages: Determine the average revenue for each month across the years. 3. Compute Overall Average: Find the overall average revenue across all months and years. 4. Determine Seasonal Indices: Divide each monthly average by the overall average to get the seasonal index for each month. Benefits of Applying Seasonal Indices: • Prevent Overcapacity: By anticipating peak periods, you can manage resources better and avoid production bottlenecks. • Optimize Production: Ensure that production schedules align with demand, reducing waste and improving efficiency. • Enhanced Forecast Accuracy: More precise forecasts lead to better financial planning and decision-making. This technique is not only useful when creating monthly budgets and forecasts, but also when crafting long range plans. When we apply the monthly seasonality to the yearly projection, we are able to achieve a granularity that will show us more clearly other aspects of our plan that we are not able to see from the yearly perspective. The capacity constraint is one example. In this case, I have this insight even years ahead to either increase capacity, improve capacity distribution along the year (if possible) or even plan better the volume production. To help you get started, I've created an Excel template for calculating seasonality. You can download it from the link below and integrate it into your budgeting process. https://buff.ly/44WU3tV

10 SKUs tell us what to buy for the entire next season. Every season, before we place our next inventory order, we pull our top 10 performing SKUs and study them properly, not just what sold, but why it sold. What was the silhouette? What was the fabric weight and composition? Did it sell fast in the first two weeks or did it build gradually through the season? Which stores moved it and which ones didn't, and what does that tell us about regional taste differences? We're looking for patterns across all 10, not just individual winners. If 7 out of 10 top SKUs had a relaxed fit and a washed fabric finish, that's a signal. Once we have that picture, we take it outward. We look at what the market leaders are already stocking and moving for the upcoming season, brands that are typically one or two seasons ahead of where the mass market lands. Where they overlap, we buy with confidence and depth. Where our data points somewhere the market leaders haven't gone yet, we move in smaller quantities to test. The output is a ranked priority list for the next season's buying, which categories get the most depth, which get a controlled test, and which we sit out entirely. It doesn't make the process foolproof, but it makes every decision traceable back to something real.

🥯💻 College kids are back on campus—so what does effective back-to-school marketing look like in 2025? Spoiler: It’s not just giving out coupons in the quad. 🤨 Take Back Market’s “Bytes for Bites” activation: students traded in their old tech for cash and a limited-edition bagel, all while promoting sustainability and responsible e-waste recycling. More than 40 devices were recycled and 130+ e-waste items collected—paired with a cultural moment students actually wanted to share. The insight here 👉 Gen Z doesn’t separate consumption from values. If your back-to-school campaign doesn’t hit on utility + fun + purpose, it’s background noise. ✨ Utility: students walked away with real value (cash + food). ✨ Fun: the campaign leaned into college humor with bagels-as-swag. ✨ Purpose: every interaction tied to sustainability, a cause this audience cares deeply about. For CPG and lifestyle brands, this is the blueprint: make your product relevant to student routines, layer it with entertainment, and anchor it in purpose. That’s how you win loyalty in a season when brand choices stick. 😎 (Photo from BackMarket.com) #ExperientialMarketing #BackToSchoolMarketing #GenZMarketing #BrandActivation #Sustainability #MarketingCampaigns

Labour Market Seasonality Every year, the job market shifts, sometimes it feels active with many openings, and other times it slows down. Just like weather patterns change with the seasons, labour markets follow their own cycles. Economists call this labour market seasonality. For example, many retail employers hire additional temporary staff just before the December holidays to meet increased demand, then scale down in January. Tourism follows a similar pattern, booming in the summer (peak seasons) and slowing in the off-season. These swings don’t necessarily mean the economy is stronger or weaker; they’re simply part of the cycle. Seasonal roles can also be excellent entry points for fresh graduates looking to gain experience, even though employers often prefer experienced candidates for short-term assignments. Seasonality varies across sectors within the same economy, so take time to study the patterns in your field. When you understand the cycle, you can position yourself to take advantage of the opportunities it brings. All the best!

Volatility seasonality. The annual clock every commodity follows. Equity vol has no seasons. Commodity vol does, because the physical world does. Weather windows, harvests, and demand peaks concentrate uncertainty into specific months, and the options market carries that calendar in its prices all year round. Each commodity runs its own clock, and desks that know the clock read the surface faster than anyone else. The 5 things to understand about vol seasonality. 1. Why commodity vol is seasonal The uncertainty behind commodity vol is physical: will the crop pollinate, will the winter freeze, will driving season drain the gasoline tanks. Those questions resolve on nature's schedule, so implied vol concentrates in the months where the answers arrive. Equities get earnings weeks; commodities get entire seasons where supply itself is decided. 2. Natural gas The most seasonal vol market in the complex. January and February contracts carry structurally higher implied vol than summer months, because a cold snap can multiply the price while storage can't respond fast enough. Freeze-offs add fat tails on top. The shoulder months, April and October, are the calm: demand low, storage math known, vol sagging. 3. Grains The weather market. Corn vol builds into July pollination, soybean vol into August pod fill: a few weeks of weather decide the yield, and the options spanning those weeks price it. After harvest the supply is known and vol dies into winter. Old-crop and new-crop options behave like different markets, carrying different vol regimes for the same commodity. 4. Energy products RBOB vol builds into driving season and the summer spec change. Heating oil carries its risk into winter. Spring and fall refinery turnaround windows add product-specific uncertainty that crude itself doesn't share. Each product runs its own calendar, with crude, the flattest of the complex, sitting underneath them all. 5. Using the clock The forward surface already prices the seasonal norm: July corn vol above November corn vol is permanent and carries no edge by itself. The edge lives in deviations: a weather market forming earlier than priced, a winter gas premium too thin against the forecast, event risk stacking on top of a seasonal peak. Trade the anomaly against the clock, never the clock itself. Seasonality is the base layer of every commodity vol surface. A winter natgas vol of 60 or a July corn vol of 40 means nothing without the seasonal norm behind it, and the norm is public information. The edge is the discipline to price every quote against the right point on the calendar. For anyone trading commodity vol: which seasonal window does your market live and die by?