🛒 Black Friday 2024 - has consumer fatigue set in already?

The sheer quantity of Black Friday ads so early in Q4 has coined the term “Fake Friday”, in which brands promote much earlier in the hopes to capture consumer dollars sooner and reduce competition.

And this year, everyone has had the same idea, appearing to cause Black Friday fatigue amongst consumers, particularly in AU and UK.

Let me explain using Australian data.

📈 The chart pictured is Google Trends AU search interest data for Black Friday, with the weeks aligned to previous year’s search interest on the same scale.

5 weeks out, search interest for Black Friday was double that of the previous year, but as the weeks approach Black Friday, the year over year gap has reduced significantly. To the point that one week out, searches are actually lower than this time last year.

⚠️ An important caveat here is that we’re only seeing a partial week, so I expect this index to rise as we approach the weekend. But even so, when benchmarking vs US, the under-index this week vs last year is particularly pronounced for Australia and UK.

⭐ So what does this mean for brands?

1️⃣ “Our Black Friday sale is now on” won’t cut above the noise of an already crowded sale period. Continue to mix up messaging and creative throughout this period.

2️⃣ Expect lower results during the “real” Black Friday vs previous years, due to increased competition, deeper discounts, and earlier activity than ever in a tough economic year.

3️⃣ Run your own race. Focus on the metrics that align to your own goals (eg acquisition / retention / profitability metrics), rather than getting caught up with matching other offers.

📝 I’ll share another update next week on this as more data comes in.