In 2026, marketing performance cannot be left to chance. The brands that will succeed are those that have managed to plan and pace their communication consistently throughout the year.

A well-planned 2026 marketing calendar ensures you capture your audience’s attention at the right moments while aligning budget and business objectives. Each key moment then becomes an opportunity to generate tangible results: data collection, engagement, conversion, loyalty, and more.

In this article, we highlight the key dates in the upcoming marketing calendar and explain how to make the most of their commercial potential.

SUMMARY

• Why the 2026 marketing calendar is essential for your marketing performance?
• Gamification to better engage and convert during key moments
• 3 examples of interactive mechanics to deploy throughout 2026
• Measuring and improving the business impact of your marketing campaigns
• Q&A – 2026 marketing calendar

A 2026 marketing calendar is not just a simple list of dates. It is a strategic tool that helps anticipate the key moments of the year ahead: sales, holidays, industry events, or important dates. This clear overview enables brands to identify the moments that matter to their audiences and ensures they don’t miss opportunities to engage and convert them.

Planning ahead also means gaining consistency. Campaigns find their proper place throughout the year and are structured around clear, measurable business objectives. The result is smoother, more effective, and more memorable communication.

The 2026 marketing calendar finally plays a key role in managing your marketing budget. By allocating budgets wisely over twelve months, it becomes possible to maximize each investment and avoid inefficient spending peaks.

Gamification involves incorporating playful mechanics into a marketing strategy. It relies on interactivity and game elements to capture the attention of a highly targeted audience. By making the experience more immersive, it boosts engagement and encourages action, whether it’s signing up for a mailing list, sharing an offer on personal networks, or purchasing a product with a discount coupon.

Another advantage of gamification for activating your marketing calendar: is its flexibility. Game mechanics (quizzes, instant-win games, battles, prize wheels) can be adapted to any key moment. Each format can be designed to fit the context of an event and the strategic objectives associated with it. A quiz to mark the back-to-school season, a wheel for Black Friday, or an Advent calendar at the end of the year.

This variety allows for communication that is always relevant, aligned with current expectations, and keeps campaigns engaging throughout the year without ever tiring the audience.

Each key moment has its own specifics: consumer expectations, purchasing context, and level of competition. Adapt the gamification mechanic allows addressing these challenges while maximizing business results. Here are three effective formats to deploy depending on the nature of the key moment and the objective pursued.

1. Collect customer data with a Quiz

The Quiz captures attention by sparking the curiosity of audiences eager to test their knowledge or learn more about themselves. For brands, it is an excellent data collection tool, with each answer enriching customer insights with precise information about participants’ preferences, habits, or purchase intentions. The first-party data then feeds into the CRM, refines customer segmentation, and enables the optimization of future campaigns.

Examples:

1. a “what’s the perfect gift for your partner?” quiz for Valentine’s Day,
2. “which destination suits you best?” quiz before the holiday season,
3. “what gift idea for Mom?” quiz for Mother’s Day.

2. Engage your audience with a contest

The contest helps reactivate your audience and boost participation by challenging them to complete a task with an attractive reward at stake. It maintains engagement around the brand and generates regular interactions during slower commercial periods.

Examples:

1. a digital Easter Egg Hunt (Hidden Objects)
2. a costume Photo Contest for Halloween
3. a back-to-school story Contest

3. Drive conversions during a key moment with an Instant Win game

The Instant Win game leverages the immediacy of the reward. It turns curiosity into quick action and fits perfectly with a promotional key moment in the 2026 marketing calendar. This format is ideal for driving impulse purchases and boosting short-term sales.

Examples:

• a digital scratch card during the sales period,
• a Wheel of Fortune to distribute discount vouchers during Black Friday,
• a Digital Calendar for Christmas

To boost the performance of their 2026 marketing calendar, brands need to rely on rigorous campaign tracking and content adjustments.

Here are three levers to use for measuring and improving the impact of marketing actions:

• Build on the results of previous years
  Track metrics such as the number of leads generated, conversions, re-engagement rate, or CRM impact. This data will help optimize new campaigns throughout the year.
• Select the most relevant key moments
  There’s no need to focus on every date. It’s better to choose those that resonate with your audience to reduce ad fatigue, optimize your marketing budget, and ensure campaign visibility, especially through paid media.
• Maintain annual consistency
  Establishing a regular schedule for publishing and engagement encourages immediate conversions and drives repeat purchases. This consistent thread enhances the impact of each activation and supports long-term revenue.

What are the key marketing highlights to integrate in 2026?

Key highlights to anticipate in your 2026 marketing calendar include major holidays (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day), sales events (summer/winter), Black Friday, Christmas, as well as industry-specific or ephemeral events like « Veganuary » or Earth Day.

What strategies can be used to engage audiences throughout 2026?

To energize your 2026 marketing calendar, use gamification at every stage: quizzes, instant win games, and interactive wheels. Adapt the format based on the objective (acquisition, conversion, loyalty) and use it for every highlight to maintain constant engagement.

How to choose the relevant thematic days for your brand?

Select dates that align with your brand universe and your customers, and do not position yourself exclusively on the most visible ones. This ensures good budget usage, avoids over-solicitation, and reinforces the coherence of your marketing strategy, with priority given to high-potential commercial events.

How to leverage unexpected or emerging events in 2026?

Stay on the lookout for trends (e.g., Awareness Day, viral phenomenon) to integrate them into your 2026 marketing calendar. These opportunities bring freshness to your communication and encourage spontaneous, agile, and engaging content.

Boost your sales performance in 2026 by planning your marketing calendar in advance. Adictiz supports you in setting up and deploying your campaigns throughout the year. Discover our interactive campaigns, which can be adapted to every highlight, and boost the visibility of your messaging thanks to our media promotion offer!

Halloween has become an unmissable highlight for brands wishing to boost their communications and increase their visibility. Last year, spending on the holiday in France reached some 300 million euros, marking a 5% increase on the previous year. This trend testifies to the growing enthusiasm of the French for Halloween, with some 40% of them taking an active part in the festivities.

This holiday, once seen as purely commercial, has been transformed into a moment of sharing and conviviality, offering companies the opportunity to connect with their audience in a fun and original way. Brands can reinforce their image by offering engaging and entertaining Halloween experiences.

In this article, we explore the value of gamification in capturing consumers’ attention and actively engaging them. We’ll also share four examples of relevant marketing games to boost your Halloween communications.

SUMMARY

• Halloween, a key moment to engage your audience with fun mechanisms
  
• 4 examples of marketing games to boost your Halloween communications

Halloween is a strategic moment in an already busy marketing calendar, especially during the crucial fourth half of the year. It’s a time when brands redouble their efforts to capture the attention of an over-solicited public – and that’s precisely where gamification comes in.

The interactive, immersive nature of the game fits perfectly with the fantastic, offbeat world of Halloween. It allows us to create original, engaging and memorable experiences, totally in keeping with the festive atmosphere. Rather than blending into the mass of classic promotional campaigns, brands that rely on playful mechanics succeed in standing out from the crowd and forging a stronger bond with their audience, eager for unique experiences and the rewards on offer.

Gamification also offers great flexibility. It can be used to boost brand awareness, collect qualified data, generate traffic in-store or on an e-commerce site, or stimulate sales via prizes or discount vouchers. In short, it’s a powerful lever for achieving business objectives in the run-up to the festive season.

Brands communicating on Halloween can therefore target different strategic objectives, particularly in the run-up to other major commercial holidays such as Black Friday and Christmas. To capitalize on the strategic leverage of gamification, it’s important to clearly identify the results you want to achieve. Based on these key KPIs, companies can then choose the right mechanics to share with their audience and fine-tune their Halloween marketing strategy.

1. Develop your reputation

Halloween is a particularly interesting commercial holiday for brands wishing to reach a wider audience. By surfing the graphic universe of Halloween and offering experiences linked to this special time, they can capture the attention of new audiences and boost their visibility.

Which marketing game to choose?

Score-based modules (such as Flappy or Rattrape tout) are simple, addictive and viral. They are therefore ideal for capturing a wide audience, including users who are not yet familiar with the brand. The gameplay, based on repetition and challenge, encourages sharing and organic distribution, maximizing the brand’s visibility on social networks.

Practical tips

• Offer attractive prizes (e.g. high-tech prizes, gift cards, flagship products) to maximize participation.
• Adapt the design to the world of Halloween: dark backgrounds, pumpkin or bat-shaped obstacles, spooky music.
• Integrate storytelling elements to immerse the user in the party atmosphere.
• Broadcast the campaign on social networks with a dedicated hashtag to encourage virality.

Example : Sowee set up a campaign during Halloween to reinforce its positioning as a Smart Home player, while developing its brand awareness. The operation recruited qualified leads, in particular encouraging newsletter sign-ups. The campaign, supported by a Flappy game in Halloween colors, also played a key role in increasing traffic to Sowee.fr.

2. Collect new leads

Halloween represents an excellent opportunity to enrich your customer database in a fun, non-intrusive way. Through engaging game mechanics, brands can encourage participants to sign up for their newsletter, give their consent to receive communications (opt-in), or share valuable information about their preferences and purchasing habits.

Which marketing game to choose?

Instant Win is based on the mechanics of chance, with immediate gratification. It’s the perfect way to capture attention quickly and encourage users to share their personal data in a bid to win rewards.

Practical tips:

• Integrate an optimized entry form before revealing whether the player has won.
• Add an animation or visual surprise in the event of a win, to reinforce the positive emotion.
• Set up post-participation email follow-ups to convert the leads collected.

3. Generate traffic

Halloween is also an ideal time to generate traffic, whether in a physical store or on an e-commerce site. Gamified campaigns, playing on curiosity and the desire to win, encourage consumers to visit the point of sale or key pages of the site.

Recommended mechanic: Object hunt
With this mechanic, the player has to find items hidden in a setting, which encourages him to navigate between several pages of a site or explore all the shelves of a physical store.

Practical tips:

• Hide objects on strategic pages of your site to encourage visitors to view them (new products, bestsellers, high-margin categories).
• Provide clues or aids to avoid frustration.
• Couple the operation with a Google Ads campaign or push notifications to maximize traffic.

Gamification idea: A home decoration chain launches a “pumpkin hunt” on its website. Each day, a new pumpkin is hidden in a different product category. Players must find a total of 5 pumpkins to enter the final draw. The game is promoted on Facebook and via the newsletter, with a reward at stake: a complete Halloween decoration to be won.

4. Stimulate sales

Gamified communication around Halloween can also enable brands to trigger purchases in a natural and engaging way. By offering exclusive discounts, limited offers or gifts to be won via a marketing game, brands create a sense of urgency and encourage shoppers to go to the checkout or validate a basket.

Recommended mechanics: Wheel of fortune

The Wheel of Fortune ‘s appeal lies in its playfulness and randomness. As well as being easy to use, it can be used to offer discounts or strategic advantages to encourage purchases.

Practical tips:

• Integrate the wheel as a pop-up on the website or in-store via QR code.
• Offer rewards that trigger immediate purchases: discounts, free delivery, 2 for 1, etc.
• Add a time limit to encourage quick purchases (e.g.: the code is valid for 48 hours).
• Segment endowments according to purchasing profile or behavior for greater personalization.

Conclusion

Gamification is the strategic ally for your Halloween communications. It enables your brand to animate its audience by offering immersive experiences perfectly calibrated for this commercial highlight, and to reach the objectives it has set itself for the crucial end-of-year period. Discover our fun mechanisms and engage your audience for Halloween!

You’re probably familiar with Candy Crush Saga. Launched in 2012, it is the world’s most popular digital game, attracting more than 240 million monthly active players and accumulating more than 3 billion downloads.

Candy Crush is based on a simple Match 3 principle: line up identical items (in this case 3), swapping their positions to make them disappear and score points. Easy to learn and addictive, this mechanic is an asset for brands looking to energise their campaigns and captivate their audiences.

In this article, we explain how to create an online Match 3 game and customise it so that it fits into your world. We share examples of how to use this format as a recruitment and loyalty tool.

SUMMARY

• Why integrate the match 3 game into your marketing campaigns?
  
• Our tips for creating an engaging online match-3 game
  

The Match 3 game is a fun, intuitive and captivating format that brands can incorporate into their marketing strategy. This mechanic is used to engage, convert and build audience loyalty. Here are the reasons to adopt it to optimise your communication and move users through the sales funnel.

1. To boost your profile

The Match 3 game is ideal for attracting an audience because it is well-known and appreciated. Simple and addictive, it captures attention and increases brand visibility.

It’s easy to customise the design to reflect the brand’s visual identity and immerse customers and prospects. By adding functionalities (a ranking and the ability to share your score), Match 3 can go viral and amplify the reach of a campaign (on social networks).

Example: As part of the Men’s World Handball Championship, Lidl proposed a campaign aimed at increasing brand awareness through this partnership. The game was positioned as a strategic lever for capturing data and recruiting qualified leads in affinity with the brand.

2. To engage your audience

The Match 3 game immerses users in a fun and interactive world. Brands evoke positive emotions linked to entertainment, but also to the possibility of progressing in the game and winning rewards.

Because of its addictive nature, Match 3 extends the interaction between the brand and its audience and multiplies the points of contact (by tracking scores or adding new levels).

Example: SFR Caraïbes’ Mother’s Day game campaign aimed to increase brand awareness while engaging its audience. Backed by Adictiz Ads media coverage, the campaign was a success, with remarkable engagement: each participant spent an average of 11 minutes playing the game.

3. To generate leads

Brands can use Match 3 to enrich their database and collect new leads. To access the game or the rewards, participants have to fill in a registration form. The information collected can be used to segment leads (according to their profile and their behaviour or interactions with the game).

This format can be a conversion tool, via the rewards distributed. These are incentives to buy (such as promotions or discount coupons to be used on the next order).

Example: The Floa Sweets campaign was dedicated to increasing the visibility and awareness of the Floa Bank mobile app, in order to encourage its use. The Match 3 mechanic enabled Floa to recruit new users and build loyalty while boosting app downloads.

4. To enhance your database

Finally, the Match 3 game enables brands to enrich their customer base by collecting:

• demographic data (via the entry form),
  
• behavioural data (by monitoring player interactions),
  
• direct feedback (including micro-surveys at the beginning or end of the game).
  

The data obtained will be used to create highly targeted (retargeting) marketing campaigns. For example, a user who has unlocked all the levels could receive a personalised offer or message.

Example: Electrolux’s Ecoline campaign was launched with the aim of engaging consumers in reducing their energy consumption. At the same time, the brand aimed to recruit new opt-in leads. The media campaign exceeded its objectives, with over 70% of opt-ins coming from the Adictiz Ads source.

Before launching a gamified marketing campaign, here are a few practices to follow to ensure it is as effective as possible.

1. What software should I use to create a match 3 game?

Advertisers can use platforms specialising in playable marketing to create their match 3 game. These tools offer an intuitive interface and functionality tailored to their needs. They can be used to personalise their marketing game, optimise its distribution or track campaign performance.

2. How do I customise my match 3 game?

With Adictiz Box, you can fully customise your game to reflect your brand identity. The graphic elements (backgrounds, colours, icons) can be adapted to reflect the brand’s values and visual universe. The difficulty of the game can be configured and levels introduced to prolong engagement.

3. How do you manage endowments?

Rewards are essential to motivate participants. Gamification tools make it easy to manage rewards. Whether in the form of discount vouchers, free samples or physical gifts. Advertisers can configure random or conditional winning mechanisms (based on a minimum score), and automate the allocation of prizes to simplify management.

4. Can someone take charge of my campaign?

For companies lacking the time or resources to manage their campaign, Adictiz offers turnkey support via Adictiz Studio. The agency’s teams take charge of the creation, design and optimisation of the campaign.

5. How can I make my campaign more visible?

To maximise the impact of a match 3 game, brands can call on the services of a Media Agency. The latter will be responsible for promoting the game via targeted advertising campaigns on social networks. Partnerships with influencers and multi-channel actions to boost the game’s visibility and brand awareness.

6. How can I track the performance of my campaign?

Thanks to a gamified marketing tool, companies can easily track their KPIs using detailed dashboards. These allow you to monitor your metrics in real time. For example, the number of players, average time spent or data collected (leads). These insights will help advertisers adjust their strategy and achieve better results.

Conclusion

Creating an online match 3 game is an effective strategy for animating your community and boosting engagement. With Adictiz, the design and delivery of your campaign is seamless and easy to adapt to your objectives and your audience!

The second half of the marketing calendar is a strategic period for brands… Back-to-school, sales, Black Friday and the end-of-year festivities… A succession of high points provide opportunities to engage and convert audiences.

If you don’t want to miss out on an event that will help you achieve your sales objectives, it’s essential to be well prepared. In this article, we take a look at the key events not to be missed in the second half of the year. We also share tips on how to put in place an effective strategy and make campaign execution easier.

SUMMARY

• Second-half marketing calendar: highlights not to be missed
  
• 4 tips to boost your second-half marketing
  

The second half of the year is full of events that punctuate consumers’ lives and offer brands opportunities to engage them. From the summer holidays to the end-of-year festivities, not forgetting commercial festivities such as Black Friday and sales, each high point presents its own challenges and requires meticulous preparation.

Here are the highlights of the second half of the marketing calendar and how to position yourself to maximise these sales opportunities.

Holidays and summer sales (July-August)

The months of July and August are marked by two major events: the summer holidays and the summer sales. The summer holidays represent a challenge for brands. They need to adapt their communications to maintain the link and prepare for the new season. As for the summer sales, this is an opportunity to sell off stocks and boost sales. At this point in the marketing calendar, it is crucial to :

• Leverage an omnichannel strategy (physical and e-commerce) to engage a volatile audience and communicate its offers during the sales period.
  
• Implement a lead recruitment strategy to reach prospects who don’t know the company and boost the impact of sales.
  
• Once the sales are over, focus on customer knowledge and loyalty. August is the time to gather preferences and refine your positioning and offers for the autumn and the final quarter.
  

Back to school (September)

The back-to-school period is a key time for all sectors of activity, from fashion to high-tech, retail and culture. At this time of year in the marketing calendar, consumers are looking for suitable offers, but also attractive prices. Brands can :

• Capitalise on the data they have collected to propose personalised offers. They will meet the expectations of a demanding audience, who are looking for practicality and good deals;
  
• Take advantage of the back-to-school rush to boost their drive-to-store strategy and generate more traffic. It’s an opportunity to forge a bond with customers by encouraging them to visit the shop to discover products and take advantage of benefits (targeted advice, attractive promotions, etc.).
  

Halloween (31 October)

Popular in France, Halloween is a must for the leisure, food and ready-to-wear sectors. Brands can capitalize on the festive atmosphere with creative campaigns, limited collections or immersive experiences to capture attention. It’s a time to build brand awareness and engage your community, via social networks.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (end of November)

These two commercial holidays mark a major peak in consumption, both in-store and online. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are opportunities to clear stock before the holidays, and to capture customers through flash offers and sales.

The challenge for brands is to attract consumers with attractive discounts. But also a smooth shopping experience (optimized logistics, secure payment, etc.).

Christmas and New Year’s Eve (December)

The marketing calendar comes to an end with the festive season. Brands need to attract consumers looking for original gifts. To stand out from the crowd, they need to optimize their offer (gift sets, special editions, personalization services), pricing and logistics. It’s also crucial to reach buyers with engaging storytelling and emotional communication.

Every highlight of the second half of the year represents an opportunity to increase brand visibility, boost sales and build customer loyalty. By anticipating these events and adopting the right approach, companies can maximize their impact and capitalize on consumer trends.

Careful planning and a good understanding of your audience are essential to turn these appointments into successes. Here are 4 ways to stand out in the second half of the marketing calendar!

1. Anticipate your campaigns

In marketing, anticipation is key. It’s essential to plan sales actions several months in advance to ensure smooth, efficient execution.
Planning your marketing calendar allows you to :

• Positioning of highlights according to strategic objectives, audience expectations and marketing budget;
  
• Define a coherent strategy for each highlight,
  
• Optimize advertising budgets (to avoid a tricky situation before the Christmas holidays).
  
• Ensure smooth logistics management (stock optimisation, etc.)
  

A structured marketing calendar facilitates the implementation of campaigns and avoids hasty actions that could impact on the brand’s performance and image.

2. A high point, a marketing objective

Each event in the marketing calendar must be linked to specific objectives:

• Acquiring new customers and increasing sales for Black Friday
  
• Conversion and loyalty during the festive season,
  
• Branding and animating the community for Halloween,
  
• Customer knowledge and preference gathering during August.
  

3. Capitalise on relevant gamification mechanisms

To position themselves at the best times, brands need to identify the interactive mechanisms that are relevant to their objectives. Their choice must take account of each event and the related strategic objective.

Instant Win games (a Wheel of Fortune or a scratch-off game) are suited to conversion objectives and to a commercial holiday such as Black Friday. More creative mechanics such as competitions and challenges are ideal for promotion and branding objectives and for high points such as the summer holidays or Halloween.

4. Measure and improve your marketing strategy on an ongoing basis

Conclusion

Every event in the marketing calendar represents an opportunity for your brand to increase its visibility, boost sales and build audience loyalty. By anticipating these highlights and deploying a strategy tailored to your audience, you can maximise the impact of your speaking engagements and achieve your sales objectives. Plan your second half of the year using our dedicated guide and turn these meetings into sales successes by distributing our marketing games.