Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when consumers flood into businesses to begin their Christmas shopping. Many stores offer extreme sales on this day to promote shoppers. In the earlier years of Black Friday shopping stores would open early morning on Friday but, as it has evolved through the years, stores have opened earlier and earlier. It even started to creep into Thanksgiving where larger stores began opening on the evening of Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday is named because of the large profit businesses get from this day. “In the black” means that a business is turning a profit.
Businesses everywhere participate in this mass shopping. However, each business promotes their sales differently depending on their brand identity. Some businesses flash their sale and how low their prices will be on Black Friday to entice customers to come spend their money on that day. These companies are attempting to get customers to think that this is the lowest the prices will be and that they should just buy without thinking too long about it. This is more popular with larger stores like Target, Walmart, Lowes, Kohl’s and Home Depot.
This is a Target ad for Black Friday deals this year (2018). This ad focuses on the savings that are to be had on Black Friday and even shows specific deals that they are holding.
Other businesses continue to promote how they would usually and just assume that consumers know they will be putting some items on sale because of the nature of Black Friday. These companies don’t send out ads like Target and Walmart to draw customers in. They advertise their sales in their store and on their website once customers have already decided to shop with them. This is a more popular Black Friday strategy used by higher end companies. These are companies like Madewell, Nike and Nordstrom.
This is an ad from Madewell’s website. This is the only advertising of their sale that they did. They didn’t send it out in the newspaper or buy ad space anywhere specifically for their Black Friday sale.
A newer Black Friday advertising strategy is the environmental/give back approach. Companies that root their brand identity in giving back to the community or anywhere really use this as their main advertising. These are companies like Half United, Mission Made (local to Wilmington), Patagonia, and Pura Vida. They ask their consumers to shop with them because of the good that their companies do. They advertise that they would be a “conscious consumer” and that they are “creating jobs”. This, along with their sales, pushes their consumers to spend their money with them.
Black Friday is an important day for all businesses and it is just as important for them to find the best way to bring customers to their store rather than somewhere else. They do this by advertising through their brand identity which is why their consumers love them already.
– Lauren Delavigne
IMC Hawks Blog 
It’s very interesting the different ways that companies will promote their black friday sales depending on what kind of company and brand they represent. When it comes to general shopping, at Target, BestBuy, or Walmart, it definitely makes sense to look like the best deal of any big box store. But when it comes to specialty brands that people love individually, not so much effort has to be put in, beyond people knowing that they will be able to save money by shopping on Black Friday. Interesting insight!
Really cool to hear about brand identity, what I’m learning about in IMC, and how it is used in Black Friday. I didn’t realize the significance behind the name Black Friday. I see a lot of the second strategy you mentioned, and I think it is the most effective. Thanks for the insight!
Wow, I never knew where the term “Black Friday” came from, very interesting.
I love Black Friday; it’s a tradition for me and a bunch of friends to head to the mall on this special day. I’ve also noticed the changing times over the years, but I think Thanksgiving should have a whole day to itself so we always get to the mall at 12 pm sharp. This year I noticed a lot of stores, like Vans, who didn’t have any special sales but just continued their normal deals. I enjoyed how you incorporated how a company’s brand impacts how they advertise on Black Friday! I had never thought about that before.
I really enjoyed this post and the way you captured consumers shopping on the holidays. It’s interesting to see where you are coming from that the Macy’s Day Parade changed holiday marketing. Very well written post!
This is a great example of how big companies/brands can negatively impact society. Thanksgiving used to be a day for family and being grateful and now people finish their meal just to go blow through crowds to buy a bunch of stuff.
What an interesting concept! Black Friday is such a pervasive piece of this season, but I had not considered the difference in Black Friday advertising strategies. I really liked the pictures you included, but I would have loved to have seen more examples and images of advertisements of each type. I will be a better informed Black Friday ad consumer because of this article!
I find black Friday quite interesting, as it is a great way for these businesses to sell people plenty of items that the don’t need simply on the basis that it was a “good deal”. These stores know how to reel people in by advertising the brands and items that are currently popular.
Very accurate description of black Friday. Companies will indeed use strategic advertising to lure in customers by convincing them that there will indeed be no lower price on a certain product or products. Large companies spend a tremendous amount of money on advertising for this day because as you stated it is a huge profit day for companies.