The Broccoli Report 
Friday, February 17, 2023
Time to read: 7 minutes, 15 seconds. Contains 1453 words.

Two brands; two paths to getting into gift guides; two different perspectives on press strategy. 

When I started freelancing at Thrillist in 2020, I discovered what a massive role gift guides played in the editorial and business calendar. September means a wave of October deadlines for various guides, all getting a special design treatment for a holiday package. It was clear that gift guides must get great traffic, and brands ramping up their communications ahead of November’s shopping spike reinforced that takeaway. 

Now, though, gift guides are ubiquitous. It seems like every media outlet publishes multiple gift guides for an ever-increasing roster of holidays. It’s a noisy space—a sloshing sea of affiliate links, sponsored content, and real recommendations from writers who claim to have tried it all. It makes me wonder: Do gift guides still matter as much as we think they do? Are brands getting serious impacts from mentions?

I caught up with Another Room and Tetra to find out—two brands that made it into major mainstream gift guides last year. Read on to find out how they made it on the list, if they got a sales bump, and whether the hype remains real around gift guides.