The National and Celebration Days Calendar is Getting Longer and Longer…

Many issues need attention, for purposes of research or otherwise – but how do you get that attention?

Every country has its own national holidays. In Holland, it is Liberation Day on the 5th of May. In Andalusia, there is the day of San Juan (24 June) or Carnival Monday in Cadiz and Jerez de la Frontera (8 February). In Germany, it is labour Day on the 1st of May.

This is what most people know – and on these days most people get the day off. But there is more. Have you ever heard of The Day of sustainability or Movember? Both are names for days on which people are getting attention for some special issues or purposes – and in Holland, there are getting more and more of these kinds of days and themes.

In 2020 there will be even be more added to the ‘Issue calendar’. The ones that launched the issue calendar call themselves the ‘issue makers’ and now they have come up with days like the day of the doggy bag, the day of the safe firework, the day of green footsteps and so on. If you want to remember all of them maybe you should keep the calendar in your 14″  laptop bag (translated to Dutch: laptoptas 14 inch) or Burkely bag.

It is hard to get attention

The reason why they made this calendar is that it is getting harder to get attention or tell your story to the world. There is so much news. If you want to stand out it has almost become necessary to create a special moment, or day, for your issue.

A good example is the ‘no bra day’ in the middle of October or the breast cancer month. It is important that the issue can be repeated every year and there is no commercial purpose to it. These kinds of moments or special days are started by political or social organisations, companies or individuals. Especially in the context of research for life-threatening diseases.

National Pancake day

Communication experts say that every issue is a target audience, so there will never be too many issue-days. But in any case, it is important to give the relevance and purpose of the day. And it works. A special day with a certain issue gets a lot of attention from the media.

On the 15th of March in Holland there are, in fact, four issues on one day: the International Day of the sheep, National pancake day, Safety day and the day of the rights of the consumer.

18.02 – National Drink Wine Day (USA)

Widely celebrated in the USA, National Drink Wine Day is also a popular occasion all over the world, as everybody wants to celebrate the day when we can drink wine (like we need an excuse any other day of the year…). Use #NationalDrinkWineDay to post on social media with a fancy wine cooler (translated to Dutch: wijnkoelkast) and bottles of Chardonnay!