Ver­i­zon Wire­less has dubbed Novem­ber 26 “Con­nec­tion Day” and is offer­ing mobile users – regard­less of car­ri­er – what it calls “the chance to con­nect with every­thing they love in life,” or “friends, music, books, news, and apps” as they slog through pre-Thanks­giv­ing trav­el.

Not­ing the day before Thanks­giv­ing is one of the busiest trav­el days of the year, Ver­i­zon says Con­nec­tion Day is a “big ‘Thanks’ from Ver­i­zon dur­ing the sea­son of thanks.”

A Ver­i­zon rep says it is too soon to say if Con­nec­tion Day will become an annu­al event, but “response so far has been great.”

To pull off Con­nec­tion Day, Ver­i­zon says it has part­nered with “lead­ing con­tent providers” to “deliv­er excit­ing dig­i­tal treats” to wire­less users. Those part­ners include Ama­zon, Apple, Boin­go Wire­less, Condé Nast, Gogo Tech­nolo­gies, Jet­Blue and Pan­do­ra for offers like movies, TV shows, apps, wifi, audio books, dig­i­tal down­loads and stream­ing music.

“When we chose what to offer, we thought about what would we like if we are trav­el­ing dur­ing the hol­i­day,” the rep told Momen­tol­ogy in an email.

“Ver­i­zon want­ed to do some­thing for not just our cus­tomers, but all wire­less users dur­ing the hol­i­days. Con­sid­er­ing that Novem­ber 26th is a day so many peo­ple ‘go mobile’ as they trav­el to con­nect with friends and fam­i­ly, cre­at­ing Con­nec­tion Day was a great fit,” he said. “The offers are designed to make a crazy trav­el day a lit­tle bet­ter for peo­ple.”

In order to par­tic­i­pate, the rep says con­sumers should start on the Con­nec­tion Day web­site. There are dis­tinct offers for Ver­i­zon cus­tomers and all wire­less users. That includes a bonus for Ver­i­zon More Every­thing cus­tomers, who will receive 1 GB of data through the end of their cur­rent bill and anoth­er 1 GB on their next bill if they sign up before Novem­ber 26.

All wire­less cus­tomers, how­ev­er, are eli­gi­ble for oth­er part­ner offers.

“Ver­i­zon is accom­plish­ing two things effec­tive­ly with this pro­mo­tion: first, it is help­ing Black Fri­day creep up to the Tues­day before Thanks­giv­ing, and where­as oth­er mar­keters seem blunt­ly ask­ing con­sumers to shop more, Ver­i­zon gives an authen­tic rea­son for this pro­mo­tion – it’s a big trav­el day, and one full of annoy­ances,” said Kristin Kovn­er, pres­i­dent of K‑Squared Strate­gies. “Sec­ond, by not lim­it­ing the cam­paign to cur­rent cus­tomers, it’s tak­ing a shot across the bow at com­peti­tors like T‑Mobile who have been offer­ing more and more val­ue-added ser­vices, data pack­ages, and voice min­utes to woo cus­tomers.”

In addi­tion, Tes­sa Wegert, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at Enlight­en, notes it’s a clever way for brands to cap­i­tal­ize on the busy trav­el sea­son.

“Even though we know there’s a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy at the roots, con­sumers like to see that brands rec­og­nize and acknowl­edge what’s going on in their lives – like end­less time spent in cramped air­ports,” she said. “The con­cept seems aimed at recal­i­brat­ing the con­sumer mind­set, such that spend­ing time with mobile media isn’t just a fall­back or con­ve­nience, but excit­ing – an event to look for­ward to.”