Planning your Q4 in the summer: why Christmas media buying starts now

Part of our series on growing your brand without a giant budget.

It feels odd to talk about Christmas while the sun is still out, but for retail brands, the summer is exactly the right time to start. The best media slots for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas do not appear in October. They are booked, planned and often already selling out months before you see the first mince pie in the shops.

Q4 is a marathon, not a sprint

Black Friday 2026 falls on 27 November, with Cyber Monday following on 30 November, but treating those two days as the whole plan is increasingly out of date. The Black Friday and Cyber Monday period has stretched into a season rather than a weekend, and retailers who spread value moments across October and November, through early-access windows, mid-month nudges and loyalty perks, have kept steadier engagement than those saving everything for one frantic week. The smart approach now is to treat October through December as one continuous value journey, not a series of separate promotions.

Why summer is the right time to plan

Premium out-of-home sites, press placements and broadcast slots for the peak weeks of the year are finite, and demand for them starts climbing long before the season itself. Booking in July and August, rather than October, means securing better sites, better rates and a proper run of weeks to build a phased campaign, rather than whatever inventory happens to be left over once every other retailer has already bought. The same goes for specific TV and radio sponsorships and premium press placements.

This is the 95/5 and 60/40 rules in action

This is also where the ideas in this series come together. Right now, in the summer, most of your future Christmas shoppers are firmly in the “95%“: not thinking about presents, not in market, not ready to buy. The brands who spend the summer quietly building memory and familiarity, the long-term, brand-building side of the 60/40 split, are the ones who feel obvious and trusted the moment those same people tip into the “5%” who are actively shopping in November. Turn up only in October with pure activation spend, and you are fighting every other retailer for the same in-market shoppers, in the most expensive auction of the entire year.

A simple summer checklist

None of this needs to be complicated, but it does need to start now, while there is still time to plan properly rather than react under pressure. Here is where we would start.

• Review last year’s Q4 performance now, while the data and the lessons are still fresh, rather than in a rush come September.
• Book premium out-of-home, press and broadcast inventory early, both for availability and for better rates.
• Plan a phased campaign that runs from October through to Christmas, with distinct moments rather than one big push.
• Make sure some of that plan is doing quiet brand-building work through the autumn, so your activation spend in November has something to convert.
• Leave a portion of budget deliberately unallocated. Holding some spend back gives you the flexibility to jump on strong last-minute opportunities as they appear, or to top up digital TV, radio and digital out-of-home activity in the peak weeks themselves, when a little extra weight often makes the biggest difference.

If you are a smaller advertiser who cannot commit this far ahead, that is not a reason to sit the season out. We have written a follow-up piece on how to plan a agile Q4 campaigns that books closer to the date without losing out on the best placements.

Want your Q4 plan sorted before the autumn rush?

Let’s have a chat and let us help you plan and buy a Q4 campaign that works from October right through to Christmas. Drop us an email at sales@hurstmediaagency.co.uk and we will be happy to make a plan that will work for your brand.