Black Friday is a major moment in every retail brand’s marketing calendar, kicking off the holiday season with a bang. With an audience of enthusiastic deal-hunters to compete for, brands are constantly innovating when it comes to grabbing attention, creating urgency, and shouting about the deals on offer.
Working with influencers is one of the newer tools in a brand marketer’s belt – with each passing year, we’re seeing brilliant and bold influencer marketing campaigns changing the face of Black Friday campaigns.
Here’s a run down of why now’s the time to act on Black Friday marketing, and a few examples which we think have hit the mark.
What is Black Friday / Cyber Monday
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping days of the year, focusing all of the year’s best offers and a frenzy of retail activity into a handful of days. They mark the beginning of the Christmas season, with black Friday falling the day after Thanksgiving each year. This makes it the perfect opportunity for brands to bump their sales at a time when everyone has new purchases in mind – whether it’s a pre-Christmas treat for themselves, or something special for a loved one.
Black Friday became widespread in the late 80s, while Cyber Monday is a relatively recent addition that places a specific focus on online sales. These shopping holidays have become so integrated into the consumer mindset that many shoppers will wait months for Black Friday deals before making their move.
What does this mean for brands?
Black Friday and Cyber Monday have traditionally been opportunities for brands to clear overstock and get the holiday shopping season off to a roaring start.
In modern times, these retail event days have revealed other opportunities for savvy brand marketers. Anticipation and competition around deals has become synonymous with Black Friday, making it an excellent opportunity to test out new marketing strategies, entice new audiences with irresistible deals, or set the stage for a new viral product.
With online publications, news outlets (and customers themselves) eager to discuss the best offers out there, as well as eye-catching Black Friday marketing campaigns, pulling out the stops for your Black Friday marketing can be transformational for the year ahead.
Here’s a few examples to get you inspired:
10 Black Friday influencer marketing campaigns you can learn from
Aer Lingus
The Irish flagship airline Aer Lingus offered £100 off flights from Manchester to New York, Orlando and Barbados for its 2023 Black Friday campaign, running from Friday to the end of the Monday.
They partnered with personalities like Married At First Sight’s @adriansanderson (176K followers) on Instagram, who hit the streets of his resident Manchester to ask members of the public which destination they’d choose of the three and why.
‘New York,’ one said. ‘For the shopping.’
‘I’ve got kids, I better choose Orlando!’ another one laughed.
The vox pop approach, combined with Adrian’s infectious bubbliness, was a great way to highlight the common draws of each destination in a much more relatable way than any advert could.
In another piece of influencer content, @carolinethomas (280K followers) dressed up in her travel-ready outfit for each destination, from walking shoes for New York to a beach dress and sunhat combo for Barbados. Focusing on a universal and exciting aspect of travel – planning what clothes to take – is another great approach to sparking that travel bug in viewers.
Combined with a time-limited £100 off deal, it was a great way to get people to get adventurous and book a spontaneous trip.
Emma Mattress
Emma Mattress were offering up to 65% discounts in their latest Black Friday sale, but they knew they needed to do more to drive those event sales to completion.
As an online retailer of mattresses, Emma can’t offer consumers the opportunity to test out their product. Influencers are perfectly primed to act as an alternate source of research and confidence in potential buyers. As ‘regular’ uses, they can demonstrate the product in action and give their opinion on it.
A range of Instagram influencers did just that for 2023’s Emma Black Friday campaign, with reels and videos showing delivery and unboxing of the mattress, as well as it being fully set up with bedding and pillows.
Influencers were also provided with personalized codes offering an additional 5% discount. Not only does this provide users with an exclusive benefit to being a follower of that influencer, but it makes it easy for Emma to accurately track sales generated by each influencer.
American Girl
American Girl Dolls have been around since the 80s, and are a much loved memory in the lives of many women across the U.S.
The brand focused squarely on the mother-daughter relationship in their Black Friday campaign, working with a range of motherhood, family and parenting influencers to promote the seasonal sale.
‘Full circle moment watching my girls play with their @americangirlbrand dolls that I loved so much growing up’ said @karissakayabbott (356K followers), tapping into their audience’s desire for nostalgia and connection with their children at Christmas time.
@daphneoz (906K followers) focused on sorting Christmas early in her influencer post, saying ‘I am normally a procrastinator par excellence, but I found the perfect dolls for each of my girls at @americangirlbrand and I could get used to this whole being ready ahead of time thing.’
As trusted sources and aspirational role models for mothers around the world, the brand created a powerful value proposition in which to seat their sale. By making the Black Friday offer secondary – accompanying the inherent value of the dolls at this time of year – it doesn’t feel salesy; it feels like a naturally good choice.
ASOS
ASOS know that competition is fierce when it comes to claiming their share of fashion sales across Black Friday weekend.
Their sensible approach was to engage some of TikTok’s heavy hitters when it comes to fashion influencers. @yungalyy (1.2M followers), @navkhuttan (2.2M followers) and @rachelspicer_ (2.3M followers) were included in the 2023 Black Friday campaign lineup.
With veteran influencers like these, it’s as simple as supplying them with the products and letting them run with them. From reality-bending video editing to more traditional haul and list-type videos, each influencer brings their trademark flair while demonstrating pieces targeted by ASOS for sale priority.
Amazon
Amazon takes a simple, yet consistently effective approach to fashion sale events. With a range of fashion influencers from @shopdandy (456K followers) to @kheumani (217K followers) receiving a wide range of items to demo, viewers could get inspired on new looks from those who do it best.
With links straight to the looks on the relevant Amazon pages, or to wider sale pages, these influencers make it incredibly easy to jump in and start exploring offers.
Sephora
The rush for beauty products during Black Friday becomes more manic each year. Sephora became a hotspot for beauty enthusiasts during this busy period, and to generate even more hype for its lucrative limited-time sale, the brand teamed up with creators on Instagram.
Sephora teamed up with @rebeccacapelmakeup (52K followers), @nicolechapman (572K followers), @leighwoodzx (187K followers), and @ola_owusika (246K followers). Each influencer put their own unique spin on the content, with some giving product reviews and makeup demos, where others visited brick and mortar stores to get their hands on in-person deals, and another giving a comedic walkthrough of the Sephora website.
Each post contained CTA’s prompting viewers to head over to the Sephora website for the exclusive deals, along with unique discount codes provided by each creator, making it a) seamless for shoppers to jump to the live sale, and b) difficult to resist the reduced prices.
Ghd
Amidst the holiday chaos, it’s essential to keep the hair in check. Ghd offered a helping hand to holiday shoppers with its Black Friday campaign, featuring a limited-time sale on its straightners.
Ghd teamed up with creators on Instagram to bring the campaign to life and spread awareness for the brand’s sale. The brand brought in beauty, fitness, and lifestyle creators including @lisapotterdixon (105K followers), @anisasojka (644K followers), and @emmafituk_ (319K followers).
Throughout the content we see each creator showing off selected Ghd straightening products, and how they can be used in different styling routines. Each creator explored this using Instagram Reels, using the captions to highlight and direct viewers to the Ghd website where they could access the sale.
Deichmann
Its safe to say when September ends the season of sliders, flip-flops, sandals turns over to more sturduous footwear to brave the autumn and winter months.
Deichmann launched its Black Friday sale campaign by leveraging influencet partnerships with influencers from family and parenting verticals. These partnerships included Instagram creators like @thehawker_family (19K followers), @zaraazii (183K followers), @fivelittledoves (77.6K followers), and @thegeargiaedit (209K followers).
Each creator uploaded Instagram Reels videos with their children, displaying Deichmann’s range of seasonal footwear and messaging that underlined the footwear’s relevance during the holiday season.
The creators included CTAs in their posts that pushed viewers to visit the Deichmann website in order to access the Black Friday discounts.
Schuh
Schuh continuted the seasonal footwear offers with its Black Friday campaign, emphasising the message “stay comfy this winter” with ads promoting different variations of autumnal and winter footwear.
Schuh partnered with fashion influencers on Instagram including @okayyasmin (106K followers), @safaalloyd (186K followers), @masonblakee (165K followers), and disabled content creator Eliza Rain (128K followers), among others.
Most of the content consisted of static carousel image posts, featuring influencers styling out in their selected footwear. Eliza’s content featured a Reel where she explored the complexities of navigating London’s rubbish-laden streets as a wheelchair user.
Creators included CTAs in their content that directed viewers to Schuh’s brick and mortar stores, where the Black Friday sale was available.
Salter
The kitchen is the heartbeat of homes all over the world during the holiday season, and Black Friday is the perfect opportunity to grab some new equipment to elevate the culinary experience at a discounted price.
Salter launched its Black Friday sale by bringing in content creators from home and food verticals. The selection included Instagram influencers such as @gracieellehome (46.3K followers), @nourishing.amy (135K followers), @fitfoodiefeed (218K followers), and @thebatchlady (330K followers).
In the content we see creators preparing and cooking different seasonal recipes, displaying a range of Salter products in the process, and explaining how these items provide a more efficient experience, giving creators more time to spend with their loved ones.
Creators uploaded Instagram Story posts containing a link to the Salter sale, where users could click-through seamlessly to begin shopping.
Key Takeaways
Create urgency
Black Friday and Cyber Monday operate on the basis of urgency and exclusivity – these are special offers, and ones that won’t come around again for a long time. That’s why customers need to act now to secure these great items.
There are a few ways to achieve this. You could set an end time for the offer, such as midnight on Monday, or set the offer for a specific number of customers, or while stocks last. Your choice of strategy here will depend on your type of product, stock volumes and sales goals.
You could take this even further, adding in flash sales on top of your Black Friday sales – this is where influencers can really shine, bringing news of these super-exclusive, super-short sales to their unique audiences. It makes viewers feel like they’re the lucky ones winning access to an amazing deal, courtesy of their favorite influencer.
Get started early
While your event sales need to be time limited, you must make sure your customers have plenty of time to catch them. Nothing’s more frustrating than missing the boat; there’s no better way to prevent this than by giving consumers a heads up well ahead of time.
By starting your campaigning earlier in the run up to Black Friday, you can build hype and anticipation about the sale. Another bonus with this approach is it helps you claim mental real estate in the minds of your consumers, so by the time rival brands launch their ads closer to the day, your customers are already primed to make a purchase with you.
Make it distinct from your everyday marketing campaigns
These sales are special, so by that token your marketing should be too. You need to convey the fact that this kind of sale doesn’t come around often, and communicate it as quickly as possible.
Partnering up with influencers, if you haven’t before, or adding other new and challenging creative angles to your marketing work, are all great ways to do this. Engaging with your influencers to see what creative flair they could bring to the table is almost always a direct route to new and exciting ideas.
Looking to make this Black Friday sale better than ever before?
At The Goat Agency, we specialize in finding the best influencers for your brand and helping you reach your full potential – together.
If you’re still looking for that perfect Black Friday or Cyber Monday marketing campaign, drop us a line. You could find yourself with a new approach and conversations with the perfect influencers faster than you can say ‘while stocks last’.
