Making the Most of Seasonal PR Moments: A Case Study

By Ashton Mathai

Published June 22, 2025

On the 25th anniversary of Michael Jordan’s final championship win, Upper Deck dropped a super cool brand activation event during the National Sports Collectors Convention (NSCC):

They unveiled a new Michael Jordan trading card and showcased his iconic memorabilia in a see-through truck that drove around Chicago, timed perfectly with the convention.

Swarms of media headlines and in-person visitors flocked to the truck, all focused on Upper Deck and its celebrity partnership with Michael Jordan. 

Upper Deck owned that seasonal moment.

That’s exactly the kind of experiential PR opportunity brands need to take advantage of.

The Value Behind Seasonal PR Moments

The media industry is in a constant state of flux, with reporters expected to do more with less. Meanwhile, PR pros outnumber reporters six-to-one, and they’re all pushing stories at the same time to the same shrinking list of press.

Even so, media is still rife with untapped potential as niche and independent journalism rise. Case in point: Substack has earned more site visits than both The Wall Street Journal and CBS News. 

In a world where you need to grab a reporter’s attention – and grab it fast – seasonal moments are like a built-in runway. Tying your message to the right moment can help you stand out and get covered with relevance already on your side.

“Seasonal moments are a great way to get on a reporter's radar,” said Carver Marely Arias. “But it’s important to find a narrative or angle that brings value to the particular topic. Before reaching out with an angle, do some digging to see if this is something the reporter has covered in the past or if they’re doing any follow-up stories.”

Pro Tip: We talk a lot about Sustainable PR, our always-on strategy that creates momentum in between the obvious news moments. Tapping into seasonal opportunities, like Upper Deck’s brand activation event at the National Sports Collectors Convention, is one of the ways to create news.

But what do we mean by a “seasonal moment?” There’s likely already a few on your radar:

• Holidays on the calendar. And it’s not just Halloween and Veterans Day. Think about holidays that are uniquely relevant to your brand, like International Women’s Day or National Entrepreneurship Month.

• Industry events. For example, if you’re in consumer tech, the Consumer Electronics Show is the biggest moment of the year. If you’re a toy company, that event might be Toy Fair.

• Seasonal interests or behaviors. It could be aligning to summer travel or back-to-school season. 

• Your brand’s annual milestones. Hosting an annual customer conference can be a built-in seasonal opportunity if you know how to use it.

You might even consider making up your own! Petmate created National Fetch Day to celebrate the joy and companionship that pets bring to our lives. The day includes sweepstakes, local events and partnerships, and coordinated social media efforts. Over time, we’ve helped expand the moment to earn Petmate national attention from morning shows like Fox & Friends and billions of impressions across social media platforms.

Seasonal moments have much more potential to help your brand than you think. Yes, it should be a great media pitch. It should also be bigger.

So what does that mean, and how do you take a brief moment in time and turn it into something much bigger?

Expanding Seasonal Moments Into Experiential PR

We’ve helped brands across industries turn timely moments into bigger stories and experiential PR opportunities that reflect their values, spark engagement, and earn real attention.

Here are a few guiding questions to help you spot the greater opportunity behind a seasonal moment.

Can you demonstrate the impact of your brand’s mission and values on the communities you serve?

That’s how we came up with a celebrity partnership for our freight and logistics client, Transfix, during National Truck Driver Appreciation Week. 

It’s one week in September set aside to recognize the truck drivers who keep the economy (and the rest of us) moving even in times of disaster. But for Transfix, honoring truck drivers wasn’t a surface-level gesture. It’s core to their company values:

“We’re building the world’s most connected and intelligent freight platform… empowering smarter, more sustainable supply chain decisions for everyone in our network.”

So instead of posting a thank-you graphic or writing a blog that only a few people would read (you know it’s true), we helped Transfix bring its values to life with a big, memorable, and media-worthy brand activation event: TransFIX My Rig.

Drivers spend most of their lives on the road. Their trucks are their homes. TransFIX My Rig was a sweepstakes for truck drivers to win a full cabin makeover, courtesy of celebrity contractor and CBS Secret Celebrity Renovation host Jason Cameron. 

We worked closely with the Transfix team to pull this off in just one month, and it gave the winner a true “home-away-from-home” moment, wrapped in Transfix’s values of care and innovation.

Pro Tip: Choosing a paid spokesperson isn’t just about chasing a celebrity partnership. It’s about finding a partner that fits your brand, budget, and audience, and can authentically bring your story to life. We wrote more about how to pick the right spokesperson in this article.

ABC World News ran a national segment on “The Secret Life of a Trucker” featuring the winning truck driver with Jason Cameron, and spotlighting Transfix. The activation also secured stories in trade publications Freight Waves and Commercial Carrier Journal. Overall, the campaign reached over 100.3 million people and drove traffic to Transfix’s social feeds, thanks to Jason Cameron’s posts.

“Carve has been an incredible partner in thinking beyond traditional B2B communications to tell our story to new audiences.TransFIX My Rig, from unique concept to flawless execution, is a perfect example. The team truly understood our goal for National Truck Driver Appreciation Week – to honor a driver in our network with a personalized ‘home away from home’ – and seamlessly delivered a campaign that went above and beyond our expectations.” - Director of Marketing Communications, Transfix

Can you improve on or play up something already existing in the industry?

Industry trade shows and events are a great option to expand; they’re already on the media’s radar, if not also in your target audiences’ minds. If you’re in consumer tech, that’s usually the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). For toy brands, it’s Sweet Suite or Toy Fair. A B2B tech brand might want to show up strong at the annual conferences for one of its key verticals. (Think: National Retail Federation or Association of National Advertisers.)

But events, like the rest of the media world, are overcrowded and chaotic. Booth space is expensive. And the media is often overbooked and overstimulated. The show floor can be a great opportunity, but also a logistical nightmare when it comes to standing out. The return on simply showing up isn’t what it used to be.

“Gone are the days of media events with 6-foot tables and roll-up banners. On the show floor, media are fighting for access to check out the products. They’re often competing with buyers, brand fans and consumers that in many cases take priority, right or wrong, over the media,” said Carver Scott Goldberg. “We designed Carve-X to offer the media curated, one-on-one time with products to supplement their time on the busy main show floor. Reporters can spend time with the products in their natural environment, ask questions, and have a good time — no buyers or consumers allowed.”

Carve-X is one example of experiential PR that can turn a crowded industry moment into something more meaningful. These industry events happen around the same time every year, so use that predictability to your advantage. Don’t just show up. Build or participate in something that adds value, cuts through the noise, and gives your audience (and the media) a reason to remember you long after they see you on the show floor.

What role can your own channels play in amplifying a seasonal moment?

If it’s not a seasonal moment for the industry, maybe it’s a seasonal moment for you. Think about a way to enhance what you’re already doing as a company. 

For example, every year our client, Contentstack, hosts their annual customer conference, ContentCon. They bring together their customer experts annually to learn, share, network, and grow. Contentstack also uses that moment as an opportunity to give their new product announcements a bigger platform. 

We helped them go further by securing an Axios reporter to moderate an onstage session with one of their customers, PetMeds. The brand activation event helped build a new relationship with a target journalist in a meaningful way. It also created an engaging session — reporters who have a track record moderating live sessions usually know how to bring energy to the room and ask the right questions.

We also brought influencers to the event to "cover" the moment on social media and Substack newsletters. That extended reach beyond just the in-room audience and helped build brand awareness among Contentstack’s target audiences from trusted, third-party sources.

Seasonal moments don’t have to be one-and-done. In fact, they shouldn’t be. Turn that moment on your calendar into something bigger. It can help you build deeper relationships with media, maximize reach on your owned channels, and make your brand feel timely and relevant to all the right people.