Black Friday. A spotlight on POS

It was good to see more consideration given to POS creativity for Black Friday 2015. While Black Friday was still in its infancy in the UK in 2014 we were then more accustomed to seeing basic two colour black and white posters simply communicating the retailer led event.

What follows is a sample of developing Black Friday challenges and trends from a POS perspective.

How long does Black Friday last?

This is the first challenge. For many retailers Black Friday is not a one day event as the name suggests. It continues for the weekend, week or even weeks, so the name is complicated to work with.   For example:

• Robert Dyas – “Black Friday Week”
• Argos – “Red Friday 5 Day Event. It’s Black Friday every weekend, must end Tuesday”

What we say.  Currys PC World is a good example of how to circumvent this challenge. They made no reference to Black Friday but instead labelled the promotion “Black Tag Event”. This was still recognisable as Black Friday through colour and event timings but provided an easier message to deliver for the weekend promotion. 

 Owning Black Friday

It was interesting that retailers such as Argos and H Samuel didn’t always have retailer branding on their POS, they were simply using POS to communicate deals. Yet there is potentially a growing trend, or opportunity at least to stand out from the crowd.

What we say.  Two simple yet effective examples in which retailers personalised their Black Friday delivery:

• “Colour Friday” from Smiggle.   Their play on colour and tone of voice was unique and personal to them while event participation was still clear
• The White Company also went to the opposite end of the colour spectrum by personalising the event with its “White Weekend”

Can Black Friday demonstrate quality?

Black Friday is associated with value and bargains from a shopper perspective, which can serve to cheapen the retailer brand. The black and white creative which dominated the scene in 2014, reinforced this. 2015 creative was more sophisticated with black often used more as an accent colour than primary.

What we say.  Black Friday POS can demonstrate quality cues. John Lewis and House of Fraser didn’t do this but M&S did, using Gold leaf as a significant part of their creative. We also noted how the M&S Black Friday POS creative dovetailed well with their current Sparks Card promotion which was running in store at the same time, making this an overall cohesive delivery.

 Is Black Friday really special?

When speaking to a local BBC news desk this week, they asked if Black Friday was a gimmick and if there were genuine offers to be had. They were speaking on behalf of the shopper. The reason for these questions was undoubtedly driven in part by the urgency associated with the limited offer hype of the previous year.

What we say.  This still existed to some extent, for example the O2 Apple iPad Air for £1 reverse auction. However what was more prevalent on the high street was the regular Christmas deals we are accustomed to seeing at this time of year, but now labelled as Black Friday deals instead. Examples include Boots The Chemist and WH Smith. We could hypothesise this conveys more offer, fewer gimmicks and is potentially more reassuring to the shopper as a result.

If you would like to see more photos relating to Black Friday 2015 click here to see our board on Pinterest Black Friday 2105

For more information about what we do email hello@posinsights.co.uk

Categorised in: Black Friday, POS, Shopper Insights

This post was written by Dawn Odoi