To many of us living in the UK, Black Friday seems to have come out of nowhere. As headlines flooded with reports of police called out to several locations in response to aggressive retail woes, people stood and watched in disarray and confusion over how so much chaos was unleashed in such a short frame of time. To our American readers, however, the waves of shoppers flooding in to snag a reduced bargain is a well known fixture on the US retail calendar.
This tidal wave of frenzy has been a hotbed for the media, journalists and even cultural thinkers. And whilst article upon article have and could be written on everything from the events, aftermath to the implications of this year’s manic sales, here at Neil Walker Digital we like to focus on the more virtual side of the proceedings. We’re talking about how Britain managed to whip up such a frenzy from internet marketing and social media.
What is Black Friday – a history of American flash sales
It’s most likely you’ll already know what Black Friday is – a day of the year when nearly all large scale retailers (and some smaller ones) dramatically reduce the cost of a range of their products for a very brief period of time. However, what makes it so strange in England is how this US import has managed to plant itself with none of the cultural context that it’s associated with.
In America, Black Friday is the day that follows the Thanksgiving Thursday, a celebration of the settlers efforts to find a new life in an exciting new land. As this informative article explains, the date of this Thursday in November has been changed numerous times, but has settled on the fourth Thursday of the month.
As such, the 28th November this year ushered in this year’s Christmas shopping season for both the UK and USA. The name, for those who are curious, was given due to it being the day when many stores went from the red credit into the black, meaning they would begin to make a profit by selling a large number of products at a reduced price. However, as the annual footage of fights and crowds will attest to, the name has taken on darker connotations.
The sales have been taking place over the pond for the majority of the 20th Century, and it began to receive it’s notoriety around the 1950s and 1960s. However, for an Island across the Atlantic, this is a recent phenomenon.
Black Friday UK
It wasn’t until the beginning of the 2010s that we in Britain began to experience the rush of Black Friday, and really it’s only taken a physical grip last year. How is this so you ask? How can it be the case that such an event that is engrained into the specific cultural fabric of one country has been exported with none of its heritage? Whilst it’s easy to say it’s simply the sales, this isn’t the only thing playing a part.
Before Black Friday, the closest the UK has come to frenzied shopathons was in the Boxing Day and January sales, where the shopfront melee resembles more of a brisk discussion than the mob scenes of last friday. However, as both online and mobile sales have grown over the past four years, UK shoppers became savvy to the transatlantic sales through sites such as Amazon.
With a high street on retreat to cyber rivals, the heated excitement of Black Friday switched on the lightbulbs of many retailers’ sales teams. In 2013, US giants Wal Mart’s UK brand Asda were possibly one of the first to establish Black Friday in store, and this year has seen Sainsbury’s, Argos and unforgettably Tesco joining this storm of reductions.
Online Marketing
And so we find ourselves looking at the digital side of these endeavours, and more specifically at how companies like Argos found themselves with a serious website traffic issue, and stores such as Tesco resembling a war scene on our social media newsfeeds.
Whilst many of you reading this may be thinking ‘exactly how much marketing do you need for price reductions?’ there are other lessons to be learnt from Black Friday. Perhaps the best place to look is how this event seemed so organic, and this is partly due to how much work was done for retailers by the news.
When news becomes advertisement
2014 may be remembered for a definitive change in a lot of news providers content, with many news stories that have largely seen companies receive direct advertising and exposure. The two largest examples of this can be seen in Black Friday and with the Rise of Christmas Advertisements. With regards to the latter, it may be tempting for news companies to send John Lewis and Sainsbury’s an advertising bill.
When John Lewis’ latest Christmas advert featuring a penguin named Monty was released, a number of established news organisations published articles purely on the fact the advert was released, including the Telegraph. It’s important to consider that the only notable public interest angle here is the fact that the public could view an advert.
So a news story ran across a number of national news websites that there was an advert that the public were going to be seeing soon. Or in other words, there was an advert for an advert.
The same is true, although less obvious, with Black Friday. It’s all too common for American news channels, website and papers to run stories about the mass hysteria that grips their nation during a Black Friday. It’s no surprise that these stories, and incredibly shareable videos, have found their way onto British shorelines and news feeds.
With every share and every report that comes through, the anticipation of such an event, and of these savings that must be worth the bustle, has grown. As such, we’ve seen Black Friday sales begin to appear slowly but surely in the UK. Now, we face similar stories of police call outs as those seen in the giant American department stores, with reports of people clamouring to find a bargain.
What we are witnessing here is the power of online content to transplant cultural events into a public consciousness. As news companies look to the internet for their content more and more, what’s trending will be what gets the coverage. Black Friday events hold all the hallmarks of an unfortunately popular YouTube Video: violence, a public place and a slight mocking tone, making the day a perfect story for news reports.
If you were to look back even 20 years this sort of phenomenon would be impossible. Through the explosion of social media and online content we’ve seen contextless events permeate into the real world. As this Wall Street Journal article can attest to, many of the actual savings on a Black Friday are not profoundly cheaper than other times of the year, further enforcing that this event is a much buzz as it is actual bargains.
The Power of Social Media
So what is there to learn from Black Friday? Well, there has been plenty revealed about the ability to bring out the worst in people from the promise of savings, but there’s also a larger lesson to be seen from the impact of online sensationalism.
From the high exposure through completely organic means, such as posting videos of shopping melees on Facebook, companies have managed to transfer this to real world sales, something that businesses across the internet should take note of.
Perhaps another more positive angle from this is the attention it’s brought to the retail industry in general. The massive exposure of Black Friday has brought good old retail back into the limelight and has led to the introduction of Small Business Saturday alongside last year’s induction of Black Friday. Across the country, stall owners, independent shops and retailers of a more local scale will be offering their own discounts on one of a kind gifts and produce.
The power of the internet swings both ways. For every story that reinforces negative aspects of humanity, there’s another right round the corner that brings back balance. Either way, we now live in a world where cultural frenzy can be replicated through online export, and this is both fascinating and terrifying.
Only time will tell what this new aspect of online content will bring. For now, however, it’s undeniable that if you wish to really take advantage of potential sales boosts and exposure, businesses need to look at the various facets of online marketing.
What do you think about Black Friday? Do you agree that internet marketing played a big role in these events? Let us know in the comments below or get in touch on Twitter @theukseo
