Black Friday and Purpose-Driven Brands: What’s the Right Thing to Do?

We hear a lot of smart people speaking out against Black Friday. They argue that it encourages mindless consumerism and as a result, contributes negatively to the state of our planet. 

Understandably, there is a lot of truth in these arguments, and in the run-up to the big retail weekend, we tend to have a lot of conversations around the subject with purpose-driven brands. Is it OK for us to run a promotion during Black Friday? Is it on-brand if we’re a sustainable business and want to be seen as such? Should we be encouraging more sales through discounts in this period of shopping frenzy? We hear so many variations of these questions. 

At KDV, we grew to believe that trying to boycott or fight Black Friday is not a great idea for small and medium independent brands. Whilst we see some brands ignoring it without impacting their numbers negatively, as it’s such a huge phenomenon, most simply cannot afford to do this. 

Let’s get real - Black Friday is here to stay whether we like it or not. As consumers, we all love a good deal! However, we believe that there is room for purpose-driven brands to play the BFCM game and do it with integrity, true to what they stand for. If a sustainable brand offers a discount on their products and sells more of them in that period - it can hardly be seen as a bad thing!  Purpose-driven brands positively impact our planet and society, so the more products they sell - the bigger the impact. Therefore, Black Friday can be seen as a great opportunity to provide consumers with more incentives to support sustainable brands. 

So there you have it, we believe Black Friday can be a good thing and we encourage our clients to run mindful, on-brand activities during this time and to use the opportunity to make a bigger and more positive impact.