The 2024 holiday season is here, and the United States Postal Service is ready to deliver! In this episode, Karla Kirby and Jonathan Castillo chat with Sheila Holman, USPS VP of Marketing, about how the Postal Service is gearing up for its busiest time of year. From a festive new holiday campaign and delightful new stamps to the heartwarming tradition of Operation Santa, discover how the Postal Service is spreading holiday cheer and ensuring a seamless season for senders and recipients alike.
This week on Mailin’ It!, Karla and Jonathan are joined by Sheila Holman, USPS VP of Marketing, to discuss the Postal Service’s 2024 holiday season preparations. Sheila shares details about this year’s “Holiday Ride” campaign, showcasing USPS’s modernization efforts and its impact on mail and package delivery. The episode also highlights festive new stamps, Operation Santa updates (including a Toys“R”Us collaboration), and key shipping deadlines. Whether you’re sending cards, gifts, or still planning your holiday shipments, this episode offers helpful tips and a behind-the-scenes look at how USPS ensures a smooth and joyful holiday experience for everyone.
Karla Kirby:
Hello and welcome to Mailin’ It, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Karla Kirby.
Jonathan Castillo:
And I'm Jonathan Castillo. Hard to believe, but we're already talking about the end of year holiday season. That means the Postal Service is gearing up for our busiest time of year when we handle billions of additional mail pieces and packages in just over two months.
Karla Kirby:
Don't worry though, we're ready for it. We've got a new holiday campaign and new stance, not to mention exciting changes to programs like Operation Santa. Here to tell us all about the Postal Services readiness for the 2024 holidays is Sheila Holman, our VP of marketing. Sheila's also going to give us some tips for making sure your mail gets where it's going in time for this year's celebrations. Welcome back to the podcast, Sheila.
Sheila Holman:
Hello and thanks for having me back. I always look forward to this opportunity to talk about our holiday activities.
Jonathan Castillo:
Sheila, I'm always impressed with the creative campaigns the team comes up with for the holidays. And you know, from what I understand, you and your team oversee amongst other things, brand marketing, customer insights, market strategy, and stamp services. So tell me, what can we expect this holiday season?
Sheila Holman:
We are kicking off the season with our traditional holiday ad campaign. This year's campaign is called Holiday Ride and it's really a continuation of telling that transformation story for the Postal Service because you know, the holidays are the time of year when USPS is top of mind because so many people are shipping and mailing. And one of the stars of this year's campaign is Ground Advantage, our recently introduced ground shipping product.
Karla Kirby:
Last year's “Built for the Holidays” campaign featured in animated cityscape made out of USPS products and packaging. What can you tell us about the look and feel of the Holiday Ride campaign?
Sheila Holman:
Sure. The story of the campaign is told through the eyes of a child, and it uses a Ground Advantage box as a portal into the Postal Services, pre-holiday activities or the portal of seeing your package going on its holiday ride to delivery, and then it ends with the package actually being delivered in real life to that same child. And so you see all of the inner workings of what happens behind the scenes in the USPS world. For example, you'll see the retail clerks receiving packages from our customers. You'll see the mail processing clerks and the mail handlers sorting holiday packages, and you'll see the Postal Service automation working through our network and seeing the package move through that network and also being delivered via our next generation delivery vehicles. So this year's campaign, while it's not animated, it does include a number of CGI elements to transition between the scenes.
Jonathan Castillo:
I think it's such a great idea to show how the entire postal network works in harmony to get people's letters, cards, and packages where they need to go on time. Of course, our people do that all year long. So why does the Postal Service do a special holiday marketing campaign around this time of year every year?
Sheila Holman:
You know, it's a time of year when the Postal Service is really top of mind because people are mailing and shipping a lot. And it's also a time of year when our shipping business customers are also consumers and we wanna continue to reinforce that message to those customers that the Postal Service is changing, we're making improvements to our network and we are increasing our service reliability.
Karla Kirby:
Normally people can find the Postal Services holiday campaign on TV and through social media. Are there any changes to that for this year?
Sheila Holman:
Not too many significant changes. I mean, the campaign will continue, it'll air on tv, it'll be on radio and print, and then you'll also see it online on digital placements and in your social feed.
Jonathan Castillo:
You know, one of my favorite parts of our holiday campaigns, and I think for many of our listeners as well, are the stamps that the Postal Service issues around this time of year. Last holiday season we had the Winter Wonderland Animal Series, as well as one with Snow globes, if I'm not mistaken. Can you tell us what's in store for us this year?
Sheila Holman:
Sure. This year we have four different sets of stamps for the holiday season. We have a Christmas stamp, which is Madonna and Child, and then we also have our Holiday Joy stamps, the Madonna and Child features a 17th century Italian artist, and the Holiday Joy is inspired by Mexican folk art and depicts ornaments and a poinsettia and a snowflake and other holiday elements. We've also introduced a Hanukkah stamp as well as a stamp celebrating Kwanza.
Karla Kirby:
Sheila, you mentioned the holiday marketing campaign takes us behind the scenes a little bit to see how letters and packages make their way through our postal network. Well, as part of our 10 year Delivering For America Plan, there have been some really big changes to our network over the past few years, and they're aimed at improving service. What impact are those changes having on our ability to handle the extra holiday volume?
Sheila Holman:
So as part of our Postmaster General's Delivering For America Plan, we are making a lot of changes. First of all, we're investing significantly to optimize our facilities, to streamline operations, to modernize our information technology systems and to improve our transportation logistics. And we've also been able to reduce costs. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 alone, we achieved a savings of nearly a half a billion dollars in reduced transportation expenses. So by making these investments to make our network more efficient and reliable, we're able to pull a lot of costs out of the systems through things like reducing extra trips and cutting underutilized expenses and facilities.
Karla Kirby:
So Sheila, while we're talking about all of the work that goes into preparing for the holidays, what are some of the deadlines our customers should be aware of to make sure their cards and packages arrive at their destinations on time?
Sheila Holman:
Sure. So just a plug, we have our holiday mailer that goes to every home, and this communicates all of our shipping dates as well as features, images of our holiday stamps and some of our licensed holiday products that you can buy at the postal store at usps.com. But as far as the shipping dates go, so December 18th is the deadline for Ground Advantage and First Class Mail, and it's a couple days earlier, December 16th for items that are being sent to Alaska or Hawaii. December 19th is the shipping deadline for Priority Mail. And December 21st is the deadline for Priority Mail Express, again, December 20th for items being sent to Alaska or Hawaii. And then for those who may be shipping based on military fleet or diplomatic posts, those all have different deadlines, which you can find on our website. And as always, if you're a planner, the earlier you can put your cards and packages in the mail the better.
Jonathan Castillo:
This year. Some of the holiday season overlapped with another big event for the Postal Service, the 2024 elections. Can you tell us a little bit about how that impacted our holiday preparations?
Sheila Holman:
In total, Election mail actually accounts for only a very small increase in our overall mail volume. For example, in 2020 during the last presidential election, ballots accounted for just 0.11% of the Postal Services total mail volume. So it is a small percentage of our total volume, but in terms of reliability and delivery that year, the Postal Service delivered 99.89% of ballots from voters to election officials within seven days. And in the 2022 midterm elections, we saw a similar level of on-time performance at 99.93% of ballots delivered within that timeframe.
Karla Kirby:
We should also mention some of the Postal Services, other holiday priorities. We can start with Operation Santa, which the Postal Service launched in 1912 to help children in need during the holidays. Kids can write a letter to Santa with holiday wishes and volunteers can go to USPS Operations Santa.com to choose one or more letters to respond to. I hear there's a new feature that makes volunteering for Operation Santa easier than ever. Sheila, can you tell us a little bit about that?
Sheila Holman:
Yeah, sure. So as you said, Operation Santa is our program that allows people to adopt letters written by children and fulfill their holiday wishes. So we are going to open up the opportunity for adoption on November 18th. And this year what's new is that in addition to people having the ability to just go out and shop themselves and ship their gifts to that child for the letter that they adopted this year, we're actually making it even easier. We're hosting a Santa's gift shop online right in the Operations Santa website that is basically an e-commerce shop. It's powered by a new collaboration with Toys R Us. And so through this collaboration, the letter adopters can now just easily select and purchase mini gifts from a specially cur from that have been specially curated for the site. So you can do it all right there. When you're online adopting the letter, you can go right to the online gift shop and fulfill the child's request right through there and have everything shipped directly and on the site you'll find things like toys and play things.
And we're hopeful that this will be a great addition and that next year we'd like to include and expand the categories to things like clothing, shoes, books, and other items. The other new news is that we've added the option for adopters to send gifts using Ground Advantage. And again, that is our new ground product that is highly affordable, highly reliable, and expected delivery times range between two days and five days, depending on how far the package is traveling. And the last thing I wanna mention is that this year our Operation Santa program will be highlighted in a new season of our original docuseries, Dear Santa. And this is a story about the real kids who put their letters up for adoption, the real people who adopt them, and the real postal workers who help fulfill those adoptions. And this year, this season is going to premiere on ABC local stations on Sunday, November 24th, and it'll be streaming live on Hulu starting on November 29th. So for those who are looking for some feel good holiday viewing that's appropriate for the whole family, this is a great series to check out.
Jonathan Castillo:
I actually had a chance to watch both the original 2020 Dear Santa movie and the first season of the mini series. And I gotta say, you know, like you said, some of these stories are really just, you know, they, they hit home the spirit of the holidays, the generosity of people across our great country. It's heartwarming and it really sounds like it's gonna be a phenomenal end to the year, especially as we get ready for another big milestone: the Postal Services 250th anniversary in 2025. Sheila, before we let you go, I have one last question for you that we always get around this time of year. Where can families send their letters to participate in USPS Operation Santa?
Sheila Holman:
It's very easy. So to participate, all the child has to do is write a letter to Santa, his official workshop, and the address is Santa Claus, 123 Elf Road, North Pole 88888. Again, that's 123 Elf Road, North Pole 88888. And the letter just needs to be mailed in a stamped envelope that has a return address so that someone can respond. And also all letters that need to be sent to Santa and postmarked by December 9th.
Karla Kirby:
So Sheila, for the information you provided for Operation Santa, is it also available on the Postal Services website?
Sheila Holman:
All of the information about the program is available on the website USPS Operations Santa.com.
Jonathan Castillo:
Thank you so much for joining us today, Sheila. It is always a pleasure speaking with you.
Sheila Holman:
Well thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Take care.
Karla Kirby:
We will wind down this episode with another installment of Did You Know, when Jonathan and I each share interesting US Postal Service facts. I'll kick things off this time. Jonathan, did you know that up until 1950 the Postal Service used to deliver mail to homes and businesses several times a day?
Jonathan Castillo:
Given how hard our carriers are already working, that seems hard to imagine.
Karla Kirby:
Good point. But remember, there was a time before people could obsessively check email and social media. Back then, the postal network was in serious demand as a way for people to communicate. In 1873, the postal laws and regulations books stated that carriers would make deliveries as frequently as the public convenience may require because the rule didn't specify a particular number of deliveries to meet those criteria. It was up to local postmasters to use their own judgment. In some locations, businesses might get four or five deliveries a day, while local residents would see their mail carrier two or three times a day. By 1922, businesses in larger cities like Brooklyn and Philadelphia could get as many as seven daily deliveries. All the while mail volume skyrocketed, especially after World War II, more than 86,000 full-time, city delivery carriers were working to meet the demand across the country and they were supplemented by tens of thousands of substitute city carriers to help when the volume got too large. As you might imagine, this wasn't really sustainable in the long run. In April of 1950, the postmaster general ordered residential deliveries in all areas down to a single trip per day. Businesses continued to get multiple deliveries per day, but eventually even those were whittled down to once daily. What have you got, Jonathan?
Jonathan Castillo:
In keeping with your theme of Postal practices from a bygone era, did you know that from 1911 to 1967 there was a US Postal Savings System that let people deposit money at their local post office?
Karla Kirby:
Do you mean the Postal Service acted as a bank?
Jonathan Castillo:
It did. In 1910, a law was passed offering low income Americans alternatives to conventional banks for depositing their money at a comparatively low rate of interest. A scare in the banking system a few years earlier had caused lots of people to lose confidence in banks. The Postal Savings Act created a board of trustees that included the Postmaster General, the Treasury Secretary, and the Attorney General to supervise Postal Savings Accounts. Those accounts were available to anyone over the age of 10, and the initial minimum to start an account was $1.
Karla Kirby:
What did people think about banking at their post office?
Jonathan Castillo:
After a slow start, by 1929, $154 million was on deposit. That amount peaked in 1947 at about $3.4 billion. At one point, the Postal Savings System was the largest bank in America. Eventually commercial banks began to raise their interest rates and offer the same account protection as the Postal Saving System. Deposits slowed in the early 1960s until by 1966 the Post Office Department stopped accepting deposits to existing accounts. The Postal Savings System was disbanded the following year. And that's all for this edition of Did You Know.
I love having Sheila on this time of year, Karla. She always has great behind the scenes information on everything the Postal Service does for the holidays. You know what that team puts together, the holiday ad campaigns, the stamps, USPS Operations Santa, and now the collaboration with Toys R Us. It's really remarkable and I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see the new season of Dear Santa this November on Hulu and ABC Local.
Karla Kirby:
Agree, Jonathan. I always love that Sheila comes and shares this information about the holiday campaign every year. For me, I particularly am looking for the stamps, but I'm also going to check out the Dear Santa Series and I'm definitely going to encourage folks that I know to participate in Operation Santa. It sounds like a very worthwhile and worthy cause. That's all for this episode of Mailin’ It. Don't forget to subscribe to mailing it wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss any episodes and follow along on Instagram @USPostalService, X - formerly known as Twitter - @usps and on Facebook.