'Tis the Season: Retail Marketing is an Event Experience

Black Friday is the traditional “kick-off” to the Christmas retail season.

What began years ago as the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, has morphed into a post-Thanksgiving multi-day experience for consumers culminating with Cyber Monday’s online deals.

With increased buyers in store, retailers know that the longer time in which they are able to have consumers’ attention, the greater the likelihood the captive audience will purchase their products…and in turn promote their brand.

As such, Black Friday brings with it not only many enticing discount offers, but companies will often earmark yearlong marketing budgets to offer exclusive meet and greets as well as stage experiential and immersive retail settings that pointedly strike a chord with their core during this critical time.

Event Experience

Though most consider corporations as the driver behind the sales-centric holiday weekend, the shopping event was first started by consumers (coined in 1961) in Philadelphia. Fast forward to 2019, and with an average adult spend of $483.18 over the shopping holiday (Finder reported that in 2018), you quickly understand why merchants pull out all the stops to get a piece of the $90+ billion pie.