The Nixed List: Spring Fever

Patty Carroll: Domestic Demise

We understand what’s happening here. Spring allows for so many idioms, and it's a good time of year to message about growth and new beginnings, and there's nothing wrong with brands updating their seasonal color palettes or introducing new spring shades.

But seasonal messaging inherently runs the risk of sameness, even if it's quite good. A few months go by, and December becomes a distant blur of green and gold, February a crime scene of red, October a hazy remembrance of earth tones. So when a spring dewiness starts to collect, messaging differentiation is out. Your brand gets lost in a pastel fog. 

Our advice? The oldest in the book: don't mention spring at all. It's unnecessary. You'll see this on the shelves with an evergreen product dubbed as a "spring must-have," even though they sell and talk about it all year round. People have pivoted to events and activities that make them feel alive, favoring cultural resonance rather than decorative terminology. 

So, whatever you say this spring, don't mention…

Blooms and blossoms

Spring as a necessary break from a brutal winter? Great. As an overall messaging concept? Feels a little stale and old-fashioned. Plants blooming like clockwork on a seasonal schedule doesn't happen like it used to, right? Cherry blossoms in your socials can be aspirational when you're still driving past barren trees. But frost can push deep into April, so when blooming and planting language hits in March, it can feel out of sync.

Now with SPF

For skincare brands specifically, the big mistake is to hype up "spring-induced" skin issues. Really, they're just repeating what they message in other seasons. Adding SPF now that winter is gone doesn't mean anything since SPF is universally acknowledged as year-round. The same goes for hydration, which typically skews more summer but is very much a year-round concern.

Watch the puns and wordplay

We love the occasional well-placed pun, but "spring into a new routine," "spring forward," and "spring is in the (h)air" push us to extremes. Spring fever, spring awakening, spring in your step … just let it be.

Bud bunnies

Spring iconography offers a particular temptation to stray from brand guidelines. You start talking like the season, versus talking as yourself, and there’s a lifetime of chocolate-flavored language that reinforces that feeling. So no mention, even in passing, of hopping, eggs, candy, baskets, rabbits, hatching, or speckles.

Renewal

Renewal is a hall-of-fame beauty cliché because it can literally apply to any season, indeed, any time you use a beauty product. At heart, people want to connect more with their identity and how they express themselves than with the calendar. It speaks to something larger in the culture, too, how work and media and travel are all mashed together in ways that alter our very idea of seasons.

Shedding

“Shed your winter skin” is another hall-of-famer. Apart from decades of overuse, it summons snake skins and dog hair. Snakes and dogs do what they have to do, you have more refined options in describing this natural and beautiful process.