Wuthering heights of Valentine’s Day

• The bubbly Valentine’s Day could also be a brand trap

 By Joseph Thavaraja

Valentine’s Day spins around romance and gift giving. Without a doubt this day is an eagerly awaited marketing and sales window for many brands. For instance, greeting cards find the highest sales on Valentine’s Day in comparison to other occasions (the popular greeting cards brand Hallmark reports that February is its busiest month, and Valentine’s cards claim 20% of its annual sales). Similarly flowers,  chocolates and jewelry too find bigger sales around this time. 

 Still, as Valentine’s Day has expanded to commercially boosted celebration from its   day of romantic expressions (that it used to be) , it has also become an opportunity for brands to captivate the consumer with alluring offers. Their massaging plays a pivotal role in positioning them among the Valentine consumers.  Confused / misplaced messaging attempts put the brand in peril. Valentine’s Brand campaign messaging would sound routine and straight forward-until it is not. 

 KitKat’s campaign to encourage people to ‘Have a Break’ from Valentine’s Day, focused on skipping the ‘romantic pressure’ of the holiday. While the campaign was well received it also faced unexpected criticism due to its destructive tone (despite the destructive aspect was still being played cheekily). 

 During 2013 Valentine’s Day Cadbury  encouraged promiscuity and invited Facebook users to post pictures of their illicit affairs (!) with ‘Creme Eggs on the brand’s Facebook page”. With the digital campaign the brand pushed “Creme Eggs” from its well known family oriented consumer base to an adult consumer segment, receiving criticism. The family theme (now changed to an adult theme) had overtones of behavior incompatible in family settings. 

 Can a well known written work which has less focus on romance be remade and replayed coinciding Valentine’s Day well, without abandoning its core? Wuthering Heights (2026-stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, directed by Emerald Fennell) is not a “brand” as Cadbury / KitKat but simply a movie. It presents the historic novel in a more romantic -and a raunchier-way. Writing in The Australian, the newspaper’s chief film critic Nikki Gemmell says of the movie: ‘In Emerald Fennell’s hands we get the essence of women-directed sex. Sex through the female gaze. What women actually want. It’s dark. It’s filthy. Brace yourselves.”

 Let us note that Wuthering Heights movie finds less ‘love’ but more of ‘sex’.  Despite making it raunchier than the novel, the movie received critical attention (“Wuthering Heights became this year’s most divisive film” says BBC!) and has been projected to ace the box office during Valentine’s Day weekend (14-15 February).

 The secret? Not definitively known yet. Could it be that by presenting in a raunchier version, while distancing from the boring “love” theme of Valentine’s Day, the movie reinvented its message? Perhaps! Haymarket Media Group Ltd discovered its Valentine’s Day 2026 data to find “the word ‘love’ reduces Valentine campaign performance... “This February 14th signals a need for brands to look beyond the fluff and focus on authentic, inclusive, social-media driven Valentine’s campaigns” Haymarket adds in www.performancemarketingworld.com. 

Valentine Day campaigns, to be a success, cannot rely on the well known, routine themes anymore. Innovative, creative presentations are needed... Still, the “creative” need to balance between the tastes welcomed by the audiences and the brand’s positioning. 

That balance is a very fine one..