By Mark Seavy

While calendars have traditionally been used for remembering appointments and birthdays, digital calendars—and specifically national days—have emerged as a brand marketing platform.

National Today, National Day Calendar, and others have all grown as a marketing and engagement tool for brands competing to drive sales.

For example, National Day Calendar, which is represented The Brand Liaison, has 1,500 “national days” featuring everything from tacos (Taco Bell), bargain hunting (Ollie’s Bargain Basement), 4×4 vehicles (Stellantis’ Jeep), French fries (Checkers), and others.

In many cases, it is a specific promotional date like National French Fry Day, which takes place on the second Friday in July as part of a Checkers campaign during which 100,000 people downloaded a coupon for a free small order of French fries. The 753-restaurant Checkers program has been running since 2022.

The 686-store Ollie’s Bargain Basement is the official destination on National Day Calendar for National Bargain Hunting Week (August 10-16), a promotion that has been running more broadly since 1996. And Jeep 4×4 Day (April 4), which has been in place since 2016, is more about promoting and celebrating the brand in general rather than focused on selling vehicles.

National Day Calendar has formalized what had previously been a scattered approach. In doing so, it receives about 30,000 requests for days each year but approves only about 30.

National Popcorn Day, for example, was unofficially observed in the 1970s but was officially established in 2003. National Pizza Day also had an unofficial launch in the 1980s before being formalized in 2000. And National Taco Day was established in 2009 but became part of Taco Bell’s promotional strategy with National Day Calendar in 2024. Likewise, Lucasfilm, prior to its sale to Disney, created national Star Wars Day for May 4, 2011 (“May the Fourth Be with You”), before joining the National Day Calendar program.

And while National Day Calendar is a repository for subjects with defined days—like animals and wild things, education and history, technology and communications, and others—with some sponsored spots, National Today’s strategy is more focused on special interests (World Snorkeling, Paperback Book, Earth Overshoot, Enthronement in Morocco, and other days) as well as food (Doughnut, Chili Dog, Cheesecake, and other days). In total, National Today claims 6,134 “days.”

“At the end of the day, we think brands are tapping National Day Calendar to be the bullhorn for a national promotional day so the brands can get a spotlight and participate in the noise around them,” said Laurie Smith, EVP and Strategic Consultant at The Brand Liaison. “The play isn’t consumer products licensing, but rather a brand marketing platform.”

Marlo Anderson founded National Day Calendar in 2013 around National Popcorn Day and expanded it with a podcast (The Tech Ranch) and presence on social media. It didn’t land a trademark for National Day Calendar until 2023, however, and is part of broader company, Zoovio, that Anderson originally formed in 2007. Anderson previously worked with C3 Entertainment on licensing and at one point had considered a film, National Daze, about his work building the National Day Calendar business.

“When I started National Day Calendar, it was really about curiosity. Where did these days come from? Who started them? Why do people celebrate them? And how many had simply been forgotten?” Anderson said in a LinkedIn post. “What I found was that these observances were not just ‘fun little days’ on a calendar. They were stories. They were traditions. They were reasons for people to connect. It can start a conversation in a classroom, create a promotion for a small business, give a radio listener something to smile about.”