Welcome to this month’s “Looking Ahead” feature. Here we’ll review events, occasions, holidays and anniversaries that you can use to build your event-driven marketing calendar August 2016.
The standout event this month has to be the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, taking place in Rio, Brazil from August 5-21.
There are no major holidays this month. In the northern hemisphere it’s the dog days of summer. In the south it’s the last blast of winter. These “seasonal” themes are available to you if there’s nothing else that’s suitable.
August is also a “Back To School” month for many northern hemisphere countries…
…and remember major sporting events such as the US Open Tennis (starts 29 August) and the start of the football (soccer) season in the UK (Premier League starts the weekend of August 13-14).
It’s also “Elvis Week”, August 10-16. Elvis Presley moved on to the “great gig in the sky” on 16 August, 1977.
Other events…
August 1 – World Wide Web Day
August 5 – Opening of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games
August 5 – International Beer Day (first Friday in August)
August 6 – Sandcastle Day
August 7 – Psychic Day
August 7 – Friendship Day
August 8 – International Cat Day
August 9 – Book Lover’s Day
August 9 – International Day Of The World’s Indigenous People
August 10 – St Lawrence’s Day (patron saint of cooks and the poor)
August 12 – International Youth Day
August 13 – International Left Handers Day
August 15 – Best Friends Day
August 16 – Rollercoaster Day (first patent for a rollercoaster ride issued on this day in 1898)
August 17 – Davy Crockett Day (anniversary of the birth of the American frontier legend in 1786)
August 18 – Mail Order Catalog Day (anniversary of the first Montgomery Ward catalogue in 1872)
August 19 – World Humanitarian Day
August 20 – Lemonade Day (the classic beverage invented in Paris in 1620)
August 21 – Close of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games
August 21 – Poet’s Day
August 23 – International Day For The Remembrance Of The Slave Trade And its Abolition
August 24 – Vesuvius Day (eruption of the volcano in 79 A.D. that destroyed Pompeii)
August 27 – Franchise Appreciation Day (last Saturday in August)
August 28 – Radio Commercials Day (first broadcast on this day in 1922)
August 29 – Individual Rights Day (anniversary of the birth of John Locke in 1632)
August 30 – Frankenstein Day (anniversary of the birth of author Mary Shelley in 1797)
Taking a look at some country-specific events…
In the USA…
August 1 – Colorado Day (Colorado)
August 4 – US Coast Guard Birthday (originally founded in 1790 as the Revenue Cutter Service)
August 7 – Purple Heart Day
August 8 – Victory Day (Rhode Island),
August 16 – Bennington Battle Day (Vermont)
August 19 – National Aviation Day
August 19 – Statehood Day in Hawaii (Hawaii)
August 21 – National Senior Citizens Day
August 26 – Women’s Equality Day (women in the USA get the vote in 1920)
August 27 – Lyndon Baines Johnson Day (Texas)
In the world of sports, the US Open Tennis Championship starts on August 29.
Canada…
August 1 – local holidays in most provinces (e.g. British Columbia Day, New Brunswick Day, Alberta Heritage Day)
August 3 – The Royal St John’s Regatta (St John’s) (Newfoundland and Labrador),
August 15 – Discovery Day (Yukon)
August 19 – Gold Cup Parade (Prince Edward Island)
U.K.
August 1 – Yorkshire Day
August 1 – Summer Bank Holiday (Scotland)
August 29 – Summer Bank Holiday (UK except Scotland)
The soccer season restarts this month with the EPL “kicking off” on the weekend of 13-14 August.
It’s “National Burger Day” on August 25.
Australia…
Down under…it’s a pretty thin month for events.
There’s a Bank Holiday in NSW on August 1 (also Picnic Day in the Northern Territory)…
…and the Royal National Agricultural Show Day Queensland (August 10).
We’re coming to the end of winter in Australia so if you’re planning a spring-related promotion this is a good time to prepare.
To end this month…
…a number of noteworthy anniversaries.
100 years ago, the First World War was in its third year.
75 years ago, the Second World War was raging.
6 August (1991) – First ever website (info.cern.ch) went live. The inventor of the web (Tim Berners Lee) also posted a description of the World Wide Web project and a link to the first web browser
7 August (1926) – First British Grand Prix motor race held at Brooklands in Surrey
9 August (1936) – Sprinter Jesse Owens became the first American to win 4 gold medals at a single Olympic Games
13 August (1996) – Microsoft released its Internet Explorer 3 web browser, starting the “Browser War” with Netscape Navigator
25 August (1916) – National Park Service established in the USA
27 August (1956)- Britain’s first nuclear power station, at Calder Hall in Cumbria, began operating. It was the first nuclear power station to generate power on an industrial scale
That’s it for this month. Every success with your promotions and event-driven marketing calendar August 2016!
UPDATE (20 August 2016):
Not sure how I missed “World Photo Day” which falls on August 19 each year. According to the World Photo Day website (at worldphotoday.com)…
“The date behind World Photo Day originates from the invention of the Daguerreotype, a photographic processes developed by Joseph Nicèphore Nièpce and Louis Daguerre in 1837. On January 9, 1839, The French Academy of Sciences announced the daguerreotype process. A few months later, on August 19, 1839, the French government purchased the patent and announced the invention as a gift “Free to the World”.
It should be noted that the Daguerreotype wasn’t the first permanent photographic image. In 1826, Nicèphore Nièpce captured the earliest known permanent photograph known as ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’ using a process called Heliography.
August 19th, 1839 was chosen as the date behind World Photo Day based on the following historical merits:
– The Daguerreotype as the first practical photographic process.
– The purchase and release of the patent by the French government”