An imported content calendar does not work in France, because the French year is not regular. It is cut up by periods that do not fall at the same moment for everyone.
Three irregularities decide almost everything.
School holidays are not the same everywhere
Departures are staggered by region. A campaign launched on the same day for the whole country therefore reaches people who are leaving, people who are returning and people who are still at work.
Concretely: holiday-departure content has a useful window of several weeks, not a weekend. It must therefore run longer and more gently, instead of concentrating everything on one date.
That is the most frequent mistake of brands applying a plan designed elsewhere: they spend everything at the wrong moment for two thirds of their audience.
May is chopped up, and that is planned for
A succession of public holidays cuts the month into pieces. Weeks are short, decisions are postponed, teams are incomplete.
Two practical consequences. Do not plan a launch then: it will fall into a hole. And get your content approved beforehand, because rounds of feedback take twice as long.
On the other hand, it is an excellent distribution period for everything to do with the outdoors, the garden, DIY and shared meals.
August is not a lull, it is a displacement
The country does not stop, it changes location. People are elsewhere, more available, often on their phones.
What collapses is professional decision-making: approvals, quotes, new suppliers. What rises is attention time.
So: distribute, do not launch. And above all, prepare the autumn now, because September's content is shot in July.
The autumn return is the real new year
It is the moment when budgets restart, when people reorganise their home, their sport, their work, their equipment.
Content must be ready by late August, published in the first days, and not written during the week when everyone else is already publishing.
The end of the year, with its peculiarity
The gift is bought by someone who will not use it. A video explaining the product to its end user therefore speaks to the wrong person.
Plan two versions: one for the giver, centred on the choice and the moment of giving, one for the recipient, centred on use.
And stop distribution before the delivery deadline, otherwise you are paying for clicks that can no longer turn into orders.
How to build a calendar that holds
Shoot one season ahead. Winter content is filmed in winter, even if it will run the following winter.
Reserve half the calendar for undated content: demonstrations, answers to objections, comparisons. It works all year and saves the weeks when nothing was planned.
And keep one empty slot each month. It will serve for what you cannot foresee: a stock shortage, a question that keeps coming back, a video that works and needs variants.
What belongs in a monthly plan
Seven entries per month.
The subject of each week.
The shooting day when everything is produced.
The number of formats cut from it.
The day of delivery to the client.
The deadline for approval.
The publication day.
And the day the results get reviewed.
What a typical month contains
| Element | Quantity | When |
|---|---|---|
| Shooting day | 1 | First week |
| Main videos | 4 | Delivered across three weeks |
| Short variants | 8 | Cut the same day |
What is decided upfront
The theme of each week, the approval date, the publication day and who answers the comments.
What is kept in reserve
One video ahead and a spare subject: enough to absorb a cancellation without a hole in the calendar.
What not to put in a dated video
A price, a promotion, an availability. They expire and make the piece unusable although it was working.
Put that information on the page, never in the image. A video with no date can run again next year; a dated video is thrown away.
