Cold Weather Means Hot Demand for Soup, Boots

When the weather turns cold, retailers swing into action, targeting ads toward areas where the mercury's dropping—even in normally temperate markets like Florida. “Marketing into a situation that's favorable for your product” is the key, one analyst tells Advertising Age. Take Campbell’s Soup, which uses a “misery index” based on local temperatures, precipitation, and how those relate to past conditions. When people in a certain area are 5% miserable, they start seeing and hearing ads for soup.

The Weather Channel helps advertisers target cooped-up viewers, and when they bundle up to venture out, Zappos knows the routine. The online shoe retailer switched a planned fashion spread on its website’s front page to one that trumpets “Cold Weather Outfits Are Hot!” Just in time: Google says searches for “snow boots” are beating out “cheap boots” for the first time in almost a year. (More advertising stories.)