Yes, it is 2016.

Yes, I am tired of writing about this topic.

And yes, I do have good news to report.

Brands may finally be getting it when it comes to marketing on holidays.

At least the bigger brands.

With a bit of simple research, I found just three of the top 25 brands on Facebook (non-publishers/non-social media sites), using their Facebook feed to wish customers a “Happy 4th” in some way, shape or form.

Feels like just a couple years ago this number would have been much higher.

All I found were posts from Converse, Nutella and Amazon.

And, the executions weren’t too bad–all tying back to the product.

Why am I writing about this yet again?

Because I believe it shows growth, maturity and a general level of sophistication among marketers.

Finally.

For years, we’ve been talking about how lazy (and in some cases, in appropriate) it is for brands to take advantage of holidays to market their wares.

But, the bigger issue from where I sit is this: It’s just a complete waste of resources.

Why even spend half hour creating that “Wishing you a Happy 4th” post when you could use that half hour to create other content that ties back to one of your key goals? (unless your name is Airbnb, in which case, you can produce more of this anytime you want–best of the day in my opinion).

Again, my conclusion: Marketers and their agency partners are becoming smarter. They’ve learned that wishing customers a “Happy Labor Day” just isn’t helping push any of their goals forward.

Now, if we could just get rid of those all-emoji brand posts…