What King's Day tells us about branding, belonging, and why some campaigns feel genuine while others just feel… orange.
Every year on April 27th, something a bit ridiculous and genuinely wonderful happens in the Netherlands. Millions of people voluntarily put on the same colour, head outside, and turn the entire country into one giant street party. As a marketer, this is a day to make attention.
The whole country is your target audience for one day
King's Day is a bit of a phenomenon when you think about it. It's one of the very few days where you can reach practically everyone, in a good mood, already outside, already spending money, already on their phones. The energy is just there brands just need to figure out how to genuinely be part of it rather than awkwardly crashing the party.
The obvious hook is orange. And yes, it works but only up to a point. Swapping your logo colour and posting a crown emoji gets you in the conversation, but it doesn't make you memorable. What actually sticks is when a brand finds its own angle within the holiday. Something that feels like it could only come from them.
The Dutch flag is red, white, and blue, but on King's Day, orange takes over completely. It's a reference to the Royal House of Orange-Nassau, and it runs deep. For brands, this means there's a ready-made visual language to play with, one that already carries emotional weight before you've spent a single euro on media.
The tompoes: proof that a small gesture can become a tradition
One of the best examples of King's Day marketing isn't a campaign at all, it's a pastry. The Dutch tompoes is normally topped with pink glaze. But every year around King's Day, bakeries and supermarkets switch it to orange. That's it. A tiny tweak to a product that's been around forever. And yet somehow, the orange tompoes has become one of the most recognisable symbols of the whole holiday.
It shows something really important: you don't need a massive budget or a complex campaign to create a cultural moment. You just need to do something intentional something that makes people smile and think "oh right, it's that time of year again." HEMA understood this well. They've leaned into the tompoes tradition for years, and at one point teamed up with Lowlander Beer to release a limited-edition tompoes-flavoured beer. It sounds like a joke, but it got picked up everywhere and generated huge organic buzz. A limited product, tied to a feeling, is often worth more than any paid campaign.
https://www.biernet.nl/bier/merken/lowlander-oranje-tompouce-ipa
Fashion brands and the last-minute outfit scramble
Here's something that probably won't surprise you if you've ever been in a city centre the day before King's Day: people really do buy their outfits at the last minute. Sales data from Klarna shows clothing and accessory purchases spike sharply on April 25th and 26th. Most people spend under €50, but they're actively looking and that window is very real.
The smarter fashion brands don't just throw a discount at this. Zalando and Stieglitz, for example, put together a joint "Samen in Oranje" digital collection a bomber jacket, bucket hat, and sunglasses with an AR filter so people could try on the look before buying. Two competing fashion retailers collaborating for a single cultural moment, making it feel like an event rather than a sale. That's the kind of thing people actually share.
https://www.elle.com/nl/mode/a39712783/zalando-stieglitz-koningsdag/
STËLZ: a brand built for exactly this kind of day
If you've been to a festival in the Netherlands in the last few years, you've almost certainly seen a STËLZ can. The hard seltzer brand was founded in 2020 by Milan Voet, Glenn Cornelisse, and Ebbo Gevers Leuven three guys who'd seen the hard seltzer craze explode in the US and thought: why doesn't this exist here yet?
What they built wasn't just a drink. The cans were deliberately minimal and photogenic something that looked good on a table, in someone's hand, on a story. The drink itself is sugar-free, low-calorie, and light. But beyond the product, what made STËLZ interesting from a marketing perspective is where they chose to show up. Rather than going heavy on traditional advertising, they went straight to festivals the exact places their audience was already going to be.
Today STËLZ is backed by festival group ID&T, Heineken, and influencer Monica Geuze. Their presence at King's Day feels completely natural because they were designed for outdoor celebrations from day one. That's the lesson. The brands that win on King's Day aren't the ones that try hardest to look orange. They're the ones that were already built for the vibe. The only thing they do, is giving a discount of 20% for kingsday and adding an extra orange accessory for getting a higher order value per customer.
Festivals are where King's Day actually lives now
King's Day has quietly transformed over the past decade. It's still flea markets and kids with orange face paint but it's also stages, DJs, boat parties, and massive outdoor festivals across every major city. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Groningen, they all turn into something between a giant block party and a music festival, and brands that understand this have a real opportunity in front of them.
Younger consumers especially experience brands very differently. A brand that shows up at a festival with something real, something worth photographing, something that adds to the day rather than interrupting it creates a memory that no online ad can replicate. Physical presence on King's Day, done well, tends to be worth more than most digital campaigns combined.
One more thing: don't just go orange, be orange
Every King's Day, there are dozens of campaigns that fall flat, companies that clearly decided at a Monday morning meeting to "do something for King's Day" and ended up with a generic orange post that could have been made by anyone, about anything. Consumers notice. Not because they're cynical, but because they're surrounded by good examples and they know the difference.
When STËLZ shows up at a festival, it makes sense. When HEMA puts out an orange tompoes, it makes sense. When a random B2B company posts an orange banner and writes "Fijne Koningsdag!", it… doesn't really land.
The honest question to ask before any King's Day campaign is: if we strip away the orange, is there actually anything here? If yes, great, lean into it. If not, it's probably fine to sit this one out and wait for a moment that genuinely fits your brand. King's Day rewards enthusiasm. It also rewards honesty. And honestly, the two aren't mutually exclusive.