At least two Christian organizations are outing retailers for using generic messages like "Season's Greetings," "Happy Holidays," and "Winter Holiday" instead of "Christmas" in their holiday messages.
Focus Action, an evangelical group based on Colorado Springs, has launched a website, StandforChristmas.com, that enables shoppers to rate a list of 30 retailers on how "Christmas-Friendly" they are. So far, the retailers with the highest "friendly" ratings include Bass Pro Shops (97 percent), Kmart (87 percent), Lands' End (84 percent), Sears, (77 percent) and Target (74 percent). Among those with low Christmas-friendly ratings are The Gap (2 percent), Best Buy (7 percent), Borders (8 percent), Old Navy (13 percent), and Toys "R" Us (20 percent).
The group has been rating retailers for two years, but this is the first year it allowed the public to vote.
Target hangs holiday banners inscribed with "Christmas" in its stores, and at Target.com there is a shopping section called "Christmas at Target." But company spokeswoman Kelly Basgen told The Colorado Springs Gazette that the chain also features holiday-neutral language.
"We know that Christmas is important to many of our guests," she said, "but we also want to be inclusive and sensitive to everyone."
Meanwhile, The American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss., on November 10 called for a ban on The Gap Inc. for not using the word 'Christmas' in its advertising at Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic.
"It's not just a 'winter holiday,'" said AFA President Tim Wildmon at the time. "For millions of Americans, the giving and receiving of gifts is in honor of the One who gave Himself."
The AFA ended its boycott on December 1 after Gap aired an an "unambiguous" Christmas ad over Thanksgiving weekend. But it has still come out with a "Naughty or Nice?" of retailers that avoid, ban, or use the term "Christmas" in their advertising. This year's offenders include Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods, Staples and Supervalu. Macy's, Wal-Mart, Sears and Lowe's are among those being recognized as "Christmas-friendly" since they use the word.
In an article, Brandweek noted the challenges retailers face alienating believers as well as non-believes in their holiday messaging.
Randy Sharp, a special projects director at APA, told Brandweek the problem is not just not using the word "Christmas" but when "you lump us in with other pagan holidays, like the Winter Solstice. That is where companies offend us because in choosing to be politically correct and not offend anyone by being generic, they're offending the greater segment of people."
But Stephen Hoch, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, noted that a number of other religious and nonreligious holidays occur in December. He also pointed to the irony of the movement considering that the "standard criticism of retailers during Christmas is that they're exploiting it."
Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University pop culture professor, likewise thought it was "absurd" to think retailers were downplaying Christmas. He told Brandweek, "The state of Christmas in the U.S. is doing just fine. If anything, Christmas seems to be winning more territory. It's now taken over October."
Discussion questions: What are your thoughts on using the word "Christmas" and other Christian themes in holiday advertising? Is the use of generic holiday messaging by many stores overdone or necessary?