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On 2 January, American brands launch their email campaigns. Ukrainian brands wait. There is more than one reason for this: a different calendar, a different context, different rules.
We present our new text — not an instruction manual or a universal calendar, but rather an attempt to describe a working framework for the Ukrainian market.
Deloitte Ukraine has just published data on holiday shopping. The figure is impressive: 75% of Ukrainians planned Christmas shopping in 2025. A year ago, it was 65%. This growth comes against the backdrop of the fourth year of full-scale war.
But there is a nuance. 68% celebrated at home. A year ago, it was 54%. This is explained by shelling, alarms and energy instability. It is safer to stay within four walls. When consumers celebrate at home instead of in a restaurant, they buy differently. When they allocate part of their budget to donations for the military (which 64% of Ukrainians do), they plan their spending differently. And when they live in a state that UNICEF describes as a situation where 47% of the population is under high stress, they respond to advertising differently.
The question of ‘when to return to marketing activity after the holidays’ is not just a technical one for Ukrainian brands. It is more of an ethical one.
How the world works
Shopify analyses thousands of e-commerce stores every year. It is common practice among Western brands to launch campaigns immediately after the holidays, starting on 2 January, without long breaks.
Email open rates traditionally increase in January: people return to their email after the New Year chaos. They are motivated. New Year’s resolutions remain one of the key drivers of consumption — fitness memberships, online courses, and productivity tools are selling right now.
Experian notes that 62% of consumers continue to shop in December, not stopping after the main wave of holiday spending.
Post-holiday shopping is seen as a behavioural continuation of the season, rather than a separate period with a fixed share of shoppers in the first days of January. That is why brands change the tone of their messages, but do not disappear from view immediately after the holidays.
In Ukraine, the scenario is different.
Double Christmas and its consequences
25 December has been gaining popularity since 2014, and even more so after the full-scale invasion. The Western tradition has become a statement of identity for many. It is a family evening, a symbolic pause, a moment to stop.
31 December – 1 January: New Year. The main secular holiday, an official day off.
7 January is no longer a public holiday, but some Ukrainians continue to perceive this date as part of their personal or family tradition — more as a habit than an official calendar event.
As a result, the festive period is extended not formally, but behaviourally: different consumer groups ‘come out of the holidays’ at different times.
An additional factor is martial law: even official holidays do not always mean full weekends, which further blurs the boundaries of the festive cycle.
14 January: Old New Year. Unofficial, but alive.
As a result, the festive period for part of the audience actually stretches to almost three weeks.
And when Western brands are already launching their second wave of campaigns, a significant portion of Ukrainian consumers are still in holiday mode. Deloitte records this in figures. Purchase planning has become earlier — people do not wait until the last minute due to high unpredictability. But the purchasing process itself is stretched out over time.
Budgets are limited: most people spend between one thousand and five thousand hryvnia. Priorities are clear: food, children’s goods, clothing. Everything else is put on hold.
There is another factor that Western marketing calendars hardly take into account: charity.
64% of Ukrainians allocate part of their holiday budget to charity. Eight out of ten do so to support the military. For a significant portion of Ukrainian consumers, this is increasingly not a one-time impulse, but a habitual part of financial decisions. When a person buys gifts, they simultaneously think: how much can I give to the Armed Forces? This changes the structure of spending — and marketing cannot ignore it.
Fatigue as context
Info Sapiens measures the consumer confidence index every month. In December 2024, it stood at 71 points. Anything below 100 means that negative sentiments prevail. 71 is not a disaster, but it is not optimism either.
UNICEF adds important context: 47% of Ukrainians are under high stress. 73% show some resilience, but that doesn’t mean they’re not tired. Rather, it’s the ability to function under constant pressure.
For marketers, there’s a fundamental line here: resilience does not equal willingness to buy. When a brand launches an aggressive discount campaign in the first days of January, it risks hitting a moment of exhaustion instead of motivation.
The Fix, one of the leading media outlets working with advertisers, directly notes this change in approach: “Two years ago, it was interesting to do interactive projects with complex layouts and effects.
Now a project has to have meaning, influence something, and not just be beautiful.”
The audience filters out insincerity more harshly than ever. If a message is empty, it is noticeable. If a brand uses patriotic symbols to sell without making a real contribution, people notice. And in such cases, it is difficult to regain trust.
How war changed the language of marketing
The Institute of Journalism at Kyiv National University has documented changes in Ukrainian advertising discourse after 2022 in its research. A new linguistic code has emerged.
Pronouns have changed. ‘I’ has given way to ‘we,’ “my” to ‘our.’ Collectivity in language reflects reality: survival has become a common cause.
Verbs have also shifted. ‘Defend,’ ‘hold on,’ ‘win’ — words that would have sounded too pompous for advertising before are now commonplace. Because this is everyday life.
Silpo, a supermarket chain, actively works with language, creating neologisms. ‘Divosvezha доставка’ (miraculously fresh delivery) is not just a play on words, but a demonstration that the Ukrainian language remains alive, flexible and capable of humour even under pressure. Linguistic sovereignty is becoming part of brand positioning.
Ethical red lines
In 2024–2025, the Ukrainian Marketing Association formulates informal but clear market standards. They are not enshrined in law, but violating them has reputational consequences.
First: do not cooperate with brands that have ties to Russia. Consumers monitor this more closely than any formal regulators.
Second: patriotic speculation is unacceptable. Public discussions have mentioned examples of products with names such as ‘Azovstal’ or “Mariupol” that do not actually contribute to helping defenders or victims. The reaction to such cases has been harsh. This phenomenon is ironically called ‘radish marketing’: patriotic on the outside, empty on the inside.
Third: fake positivity is annoying. If a brand pretends that the war does not exist, the audience sees it. You can talk about the war in moderation, but completely ignoring reality works against trust.
Fourth: patience is becoming the new norm. The Fix quotes advertising agencies: “We have become more patient with clients.
We understand that they may be under pressure because of the war. We have re-evaluated short-term performance metrics — results may come later.”
This is an adaptation to a reality where deadlines can be missed due to shelling, and decision-makers may be unreachable due to power outages.
When to return
Now for the specifics.
1–2 January: don’t start. People are resting. New Year’s Eve, post-holiday fatigue, family time. Inboxes are overflowing with emails from global brands operating on the Western calendar. Competition for attention is high, response is low.
3–5 January: a soft start. Email reminders in the style of ‘we’re here, here’s what’s new’. On social media – motivational content, inspiring stories, support for New Year’s resolutions. If the company made charitable donations during the holidays, this is a good time to talk about the results – transparently, with figures and specifics.
This is a warm-up before sales. The audience needs to remember the brand again before receiving commercial offers.
8 January: full activity. For many companies and teams, this is a period of actually returning to the work rhythm after the holiday break. This is the logical time to launch post-holiday sales: discounts on remaining stock, campaigns related to new habits — organisation, self-care, increasing personal efficiency.
But without aggression. The ‘buy now or lose forever’ formula is becoming less and less effective. Better to say, ‘we’ll be here when you’re ready.’
10–20 January: the conditional ‘golden window’. Holiday fatigue subsides, advances arrive, people start planning for the year and are ready to invest in new habits. It is during this period that major campaigns and budgets are usually concentrated.
The B2B segment lives by a different rhythm. Decision-makers return to full-time work later. 1–7 January is not the time for cold mailings. This is a period of internal planning and setting quarterly priorities. Soft communication can begin on 8–10 January, and full-fledged offers on 13–15 January.
Charitable organisations are an exception. They can start their activities earlier, as early as 3–5 January. Deloitte shows that 64% of Ukrainians include charity in their holiday budgets, and their willingness to support appears earlier than their willingness to buy commercial products.
What works in January
Topics should be specific.
- Organisation and planning. Planners, calendars, structuring tools. After the holiday chaos, people are looking for order. Messages should be realistic: ‘start small — one step every day,’ without radical promises.
- Support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. If the company is really helping, it can talk about it. But only with transparency: how much was raised, where the funds went, who they helped. General phrases without specifics cause scepticism.
- Self-care and mental health. When almost half the population is under stress, self-care becomes a necessity. Psychological support, recovery practices, assistance services. Key message: taking care of yourself is an investment in resilience.
- Economy. How to save without losing quality. Package deals, loyalty programmes, refunds. Ukrainians are cautious shoppers, and understanding these limitations translates into trust.
- Stories of resilience. Real stories of Ukrainians who achieved their goals in 2025 despite all circumstances. Familiar, recognisable examples work better than abstract promises.
These themes are consistent with global and local research on consumer behaviour in times of high uncertainty.
Avoid aggressive pressure from sellers. People are tired — additional pressure only increases rejection. Patriotic speculation or complete disregard for the war does not work either. Comparisons with global trends without local adaptation, such as ‘New Year, New You,’ sound naive in the context of daily anxieties.
Balance
Ukrainian marketing in January 2026 is about finding a balance between global practices and local realities. Global trends advise starting quickly and playing on New Year’s promises. The Ukrainian context adds fatigue, caution, and a blurred holiday period. A compromise is possible: 3–5 January is the preparatory stage, 8 January is the start, and 10–20 January is the peak of activity.
But it is not the calendar that is decisive, but the approach.
The world returns to work on 2 January. Ukraine – a little later. Marketing that ignores this difference loses out due to irrelevance. 2026 does not begin when the calendar changes the number, but when people are ready to interact.
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