The marketing behind Blue Monday. Is it really the most depressing day of the year?

Science or marketing? The truth about Blue Monday

/ Advertising, Content Marketing, Marketing 101 / By

It’s that time of year again. The time we tell as many people as possible that Blue Monday was made up to sell holidays. The term was coined as part of a marketing campaign for Sky Travel – albeit a pretty good one since we’re still using it nearly 20 years later.

Back in 2005, Sky Travel sent out a press release claiming they had a formula for determining the most depressing day of the year. Their concept was backed by a psychologist, Dr Cliff Arnall, with an equation that included things like:

  • salary
  • debt levels
  • the ‘feeling of a need to take action’
  • time since Christmas
  • time since new year’s resolutions have been broken
  • low motivation levels
  • weather conditions (but only in the Northern Hemisphere)

With this equation, Monday 24th January 2005 was highlighted as the original Blue Monday. Since then it has been claimed by many to be the third Monday in January (in 2024, that’s 15th January), while others say it is always the second, or the fourth, or simply the last Monday of the month.

Unsurprisingly, academics and health professionals tend to disagree with the theory. They highlight the difficulty of quantifying many of the criteria listed and the impracticality of measuring or defining human emotion with a one-size-fits-all equation. Blue Monday has been widely dismissed as pseudoscience in the years since it was first introduced. Even so, the myth prevails.

Each year, we see countless headlines and campaigns telling us all about Blue Monday and all the things we can do (or buy) to reduce its impact. Dr Cliff Arnall has even apologised for making January more depressing with the term, but that statement was part of another campaign with Virgin Holidays, so make of that what you will…

Brew Monday

We don’t just enjoy telling people about the marketing campaign that introduced the concept of Blue Monday. We love that it gives us an opportunity to promote the Samaritans campaign it inspired, Brew Monday.

Brew Monday is an annual mental health campaign that encourages everyone to grab a brew and take a moment to catch-up with the people we care about.

“Any day can be a Brew Monday. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Monday morning or Saturday night, or if you’re drinking green tea, black coffee, or orange juice. If you’re sharing a cuppa and listening, you’re doing it right.”

You can find out more about Brew Monday at samaritans.org

Our latest posts:

Scroll to Top