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What is Black Friday?

Black Friday is an annual shopping event that takes place the day after Thanksgiving in the United States (and increasingly world-wide). Massive discounts and one-time deals, endless lines and an occasional riot over the last TV on the shelf. It’s a well-known busy time of year for businesses and marketing teams. It’s essentially a big warm-up for the Christmas period. The best Black Friday campaigns will always be a mix of traditional marketing strategies (like bundle offers, and cart reminders) but also unique selling points and originality, i.e something you’ve never seen before.

Black Friday usually falls between November 23 and November 29, and it always follows Thanksgiving which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. And while it started as a US centric holiday, it’s since grown into a global phenomenon. In almost all malls across the world the big “Black Friday – 70% off” signs can be seen.

In this blog post, we take a look at the history of the term and the holiday, what it has evolved into and the top 5 most creative Black Friday campaigns of recent years (in our opinion).

Why is it called Black Friday?

The origin of the term “Black Friday” dates back to the 1960s in Philadelphia. Police officers started describing it as such due to heavy traffic and crowded streets caused by post-Thanksgiving shopping.

The propensity of the American population to start shopping en masse didn’t go unnoticed by marketers and sales managers. Over time, retailers gave the phrase “Black Friday” a more positive spin. Here’s what they did:

Back in those days, a lot of businesses operated “in the red” meaning their businesses weren’t profitable. However, the surge in holiday shopping that began after Thanksgiving often pushed them “into the black”. Black ink in the accounting world just meant profitability. So slowly but surely Black Friday became associated with business success and the official start of the shopping season. Hence the “black” in “Black Friday”.

“In 2024, Black Friday alone generated $10.8B in revenue, up from $9.8B in 2023. Cyber Monday saw a similar increase as consumers spent $13.3B in ‘24 – up from $12.4B in ‘23.”

SOURCE: WOO COMMERCE

What happens on Black Friday and what is Cyber Monday?

During Black Friday shoppers expect limited-time offers, steep discounts and early doors offers. These deals and discounts usually apply for nearly all product categories, from electronics to home décor.

These deals happen both in stores and online. But with the rise of e-commerce, it’s now a fact that 60% of customers prefer to shop for Black Friday deals online. Some businesses have therefore made the decision to offer deals exclusively on their e-commerce sites. The online side of the Black Friday deals have been rebranded in 2005 into “Cyber Monday”.

What are Black Friday marketing strategies?

Black Friday marketing strategies are a set of things that businesses use to promote discounts and deals. These range from traditional marketing strategies like email campaigns, SMS marketing and social media promotions to strategies that are only typically used during Black Friday. Here’s a breakdown of some of these strategies:

• Offering of bundle deals: a well-established strategy that invites the shopper to add more items to their cart. Customers often perceive that they’re getting a better value and this leads to more sales than average.
• Sending cart abandonment reminders: automated messages sent to online shoppers who added items to their cart, but left them there without making further actions. The goal here is to recover lost sales, and is usually coupled with a limited-time discount.
• Sneak peeks: retailers give shoppers early glimpses into the upcoming sales and deals. They build anticipation and excitement, keeps the shopper on the edge of their seat and this combination makes it more likely that they’ll buy the product when it’s released, since they poured a lot of emotional energy into the product already.
• Free shipping based on your order value: shipping costs are one of the most common reasons shoppers give for abandoning carts. Offering free shipping is a good solution, but it can’t be done in bulk, as free shipping for every order would probably financially ruin your business. This is where conditional shipping comes in handy. Orders over a certain value, like “over a $100” being eligible for free shipping gives the sales an extra boost, without being financially irresponsible.
• Gift card promotions: they aren’t exclusive to Black Friday deals, however, you can discount a $100 gift card to just $70 while keeping the usable value. You get the revenue immediately and can deliver the service or products later.

List of the 5 best Black Friday campaigns

There have been quite a few interesting and creative Black Friday campaigns over the years. We’ve condensed our list, but it could easily have been 10 or 20. In the end, we had to settle down for the 5 we found the most creative. Let’s break them down.

1. Cards Against Humanity’s “Nothing for Black Friday” (2015)

Cards against humanity is a popular party card game where players complete fill-in-the-blank statements on black cards with funny and offensive phrases from white cards they have in hand. So from the offset, their brand is much more free to be a more on the nose with their marketing campaigns.

Well, in 2015 CAH sold “nothing” for $5 as a prank to make fun of consumerism culture that is associated with Black Friday. While it sounds ridiculous, the company managed to make over $71,000. The “nothing” in question is literally what it says on the tin. Customers pay for the offer of “a superior Black Friday experience of buying nothing”. With the stunt raising that much money, it means almost 12,500 people accepted the offer. Goes to show that even if you’re in Grinch mood, you can still make Black Friday and the holiday season work to your advantage.

2. IKEA’s “Buy back Friday” (2020)

IKEA makes durable furniture at affordable prices. It is also focused on sustainability, with a goal of becoming a circular company by 2030. So in 2020, IKEA came out with an idea that nobody was expecting. They started buying back customers’ furniture.

In over 20 countries, on Black Friday IKEA customers could return their furniture, in exchange of up to 50% of its original value. The second-hand furniture was then fixed up, displayed in-store and sold to other customers at reduced prices. Any unsold furniture could be donated to charity or recycled, making sure that nothing went into landfill.

The results were quite impressive. More than 61,000 items were resold, and the coverage of the story was big. 1,546+ news articles have mentioned the campaign and the overall sentiment about the campaign was 96% neutral to positive across online news and social media.

3. 22 Days Nutrition’s “Random discount codes” (2024)

22 Days Nutrition promotes a plant-based diet and offers products like organic, vegan protein bars and meal planners.

For their Black Friday campaign last year they gamified it a bit. They gave each subscriber a unique discount code, that was randomly generated and the discounts ranged anywhere between 20%-50%. If there’s one thing humans love more than a good deal, it’s the surprise element of a good deal, and 22 Days Nutrition did a great job at making their Black Friday campaign fun and balancing that with a good deal.

4. The Verge mystery bag (2019)

While it’s not conventional, Black Friday campaigns can be an opportunity for businesses that have non-consumer products to grow their audience and online presence. The best example of this that we could find was the tech publication The Verge utilizing the holiday to its advantage, and it was a simple giveaway.

In 2019, they offered a mystery bag of their favourite tech gadgets as a prize in a social media competition. To enter, all the user had to do was follow The Verge on Twitter (now known as X) using a widget on their website.

While not a conventional Black Friday deal, this is a great example of how to use the holiday to increase your website traffic and social media following. Every little bit counts.

5. Lush’s limited edition orangutan soap (2017)

Lush, the UK-based cosmetics company founded in 1995 is known for its handmade products and fresh and natural ingredients.

In 2017, they launched the limited edition orangutan soap bars. This was to raise awareness of the shrinking orangutan population. They created around 14,600 soap bars, about the same as the orangutan population.

And it worked, as the collection sold out within days. They raised £126,014 and gave it all to the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS).

Key takeaways

The most creative Black Friday campaigns are always going to be the ones that subvert expectations. Yes, there’s always the underlying rule that the deal or campaign is benefiting the business, but the ones we’ve mentioned in this blog have been thinking outside the box. They each offered something unique that many other businesses cannot claim. In short, the most creative Black Friday campaigns tend to:

• Challenge consumer expectations
• Add an element of surprise or play
• Tie the campaign to a deeper brand value
• Use psychology to influence decision making
• Create impact beyond a single sales day

Having trouble coming up with your unique Black Friday campaign. We’ll happily help you with that!

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