The magic of the Advent Calendars

It is the gift before the gifts, the surprise before the holidays.... What is it? What is it? The Advent calendar. True trend of the moment, all the brands, even the most prestigious ones, have their own calendar, and they all have very good reasons to adopt the madness of this end of year.

Inherited from our German neighbours, the tradition of the Advent calendar appeared in France in 1908 with drawings. In 1920, it had windows to open every day of December before Christmas and in 1958, chocolate was added! What is the situation today? Depending on the brand, windows are the opportunity to offer gourmet or scented surprises or any other mini gift in the universe of the house that offers it. The market for these calendars is booming and is now aimed at adults. It has become a real business with 12 million calendars sold last year for a total of 50 million euros, all categories combined.

For luxury brands, it has become a highly strategic market. The Advent Calendar is the cult and essential object of the season. But the customer will have to choose between several, so all the creativity of the houses is mobilized.

True to tradition, the chocolate calendar is the most purchased. The best chocolate makers such as La Maison du chocolat, Pierre Hermé, La Comtesse du Barry, La Durée or Alain Ducasse have embarked on the adventure by offering gourmet calendars that are as beautiful as they are good. There are also calendars filled with teas, coffees or luxury groceries such as those from Fauchon, Angelina or Maxim's.

More trendy than ever, the Advent Calendar Beauty! Dior, Clarins, Paul and Joe, Benefit, The Body Shop, Nuxe, Kiehl's, Clinique, Biotherm... or distributors like Séphora or Marionnaud... All the brands are launching!  They see this as a great opportunity to do an image and sampling campaign, 24 windows for the 24 days preceding Christmas, it is also a reminder to the brand as a gift idea.

Perfumers also launch out to make us dream until Christmas Day by offering us a collectible item filled with precious miniatures, such as that of Dyptique, Jo Malone, Armani, Aqua di Parma or Yves Saint Laurent.

The most luxurious? The one of Tiffany measuring 1m20, illustrated by hand and containing beautiful precious jewels... To buy this luxury calendar, it will cost you $11000000!

Other crazy ideas include the Advent Calendar of the World Cheese Champion, called Cheesy Christmas. There are also the 100% wine, or whisky or the 100% beer called Beery Christmas, and even crazier, the Trixie calendar for our friends the dogs with a different kibble every day!

Good ideas and a real boon for brands, says Thibaut de la Rivière, director of Sup de luxe, "But brands will have to move quickly because they only have a few weeks to sell their stock because the market is so ephemeral: sales, which started at the end of October, collapse at the beginning of December when the first boxes are opened".