29 Messaging Ideas for Your Leap Day Campaigns

It’s a marketing opportunity that comes around only once every four years. It’s Leap Day. With the next one coming up on Feb. 29 in 2024, the extra day is added to the shortest month of the year because the Earth takes approximately 365.25 days to orbit the sun, so every fourth year needs to have 366 days to fully account for that orbital time.

Much like having a Friday the 13th in October, the rarity of Leap Day has long inspired marketers to get creative and do something special for the occasion. To help inspire you, we examined Leap Day campaigns from the past four occurrences.

Across all of those campaigns, we’ve identified five major themes that brands have historically used. To illustrate each theme, we’re sharing messaging ideas that we’ve seen previously used, as well as some that we’ve haven’t seen but certainly fit the theme. Needless to say, we had to share 29 ideas in total.

Leap Day Messaging Ideas

When you’re crafting your Leap Day marketing campaigns, consider the following messaging ideas:

Theme #1: Leap Day being only one day

1. Holding a “One-day sale” or “one-day event,” especially with live countdown timer
2. Offering discounted or free one-day or same-day shipping

Theme #2: Feb. 29 only coming once every 4 years

3. Using “Once every 4 years” messaging
4. Offering a 4-year subscription at discounted price
5. Offering 4-year warranty on purchased product, whether for free, at discounted price, or instead of your usual 1-, 2-, or 3-year warranty
6. Highlighting products or content from the past 4 years, whether it’s the most popular or highest rated products, it’s industry changes, or product enhancements over that time

Theme #3: Feb. 29 being an “extra” day in the month

7. Encouraging your audience to make use of the extra day, whether it’s to volunteer, take care of themselves, make a difference in the world, or something else
8. Using “Extra day = extra savings” messaging
9. A “For your plus-one” deal, where the purchaser can bring or include a friend, or they can share a special referral code

Theme #4: Leap Day being the 29th day of the month

10. Promoting a product or service at $29 price point or ones under $29
11. At 29 cent price point
12. At $X.29 price point
13. At any price point with 29 in it (e.g., $299, $2,900)
14. Promoting 29% off
15. $29 off
16. Having free shipping minimum of $29
17. “Buy one, get one for $29” or “Buy one, get one 29% off” deal
18. “Get two for only $29” pricing
19. “Spend X and get this gift worth $29 for free” offer
20. Promoting 29 offers or spotlighting your 29 most popular or highest rated products/content
21. Rounding up 29 of something (e.g., 29 quotes from experts, 29 stats, 29 photographs, 29 influencers to follow)
22. Offering a 29-day free trial rather than your usual 7- or 14-day trial
23. “Buy a 1-year subscription and get another 29 days free” deal
24. “Earn 29 extra loyalty points on your purchase” offer
25. “Earn 2.9 times more loyalty points on your purchase” offer

Theme #5: Leap Day being a transition into something new

26. Using “Leap into spring” messaging (e.g., launch of spring fashion collections, spring lawn and garden products)
27. Encouraging your audience to “Take a leap” of faith to make a career change, move, find love, or make another big life decision
28. Using “Leap into savings” messaging
29. Featuring leaping imagery (e.g., jump ropes, people jumping, frogs, antelopes) 

You get bonus points if you combine two or more of these. For example, “Get 29% off when you spend $29 or more” or “Check out the 29 most popular songs of the past 4 years.”

What More Campaign Ideas?

Check out our Content Calendar Assistant (2024 edition coming soon!), which is available for free via a no-form download. Designed to aid you with your content planning, this guide contains nearly 1,000 ideas to build out your content calendar for the year, plus insights and advice from some of our nearly 400 digital marketing experts.

Everybody can use a little help coming up with content ideas. And everybody can use a heads up to make sure they don’t look foolish or insensitive by launching campaigns that clash with US or international holidays, occasions, or events. Oracle Marketing Consulting’s Content Calendar Assistant provides that help.

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Need help with planning your digital marketing campaigns? Oracle Digital Experience Agency has hundreds of marketing and communication experts ready to help Oracle customers create stronger connections with their customers and employees, even if they’re not using an Oracle platform as the foundation of that experience. Our award-winning specialists can handle everything from creative and strategy to content planning and project management.

For help overcoming your challenges or seizing your opportunities, talk to your Oracle account manager, visit us online, or email us at OracleAgency_US@Oracle.com.

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Now completely updated, this blog post was originally published on Feb. 28, 2012 by Chad S. White.