Black Friday has become a global phenomenon. In 2023, worldwide sales reached a staggering $70.9 billion—up 8% from the previous year. Together with Cyber Monday, this landmark shopping period presents both significant opportunities and challenges for brands, particularly in the fiercely competitive Fashion, Lifestyle and Beauty (FLB) industries.
To help navigate this high-stakes season, we've released our Holiday Marketing 2024 Report, featuring survey results from hundreds of FLB professionals. This report offers a deep dive into how industry leaders are approaching Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM), highlighting effective strategies and emerging trends.
Below, we’ll draw on some key findings from the report to explore how brands can use their Black Friday marketing strategy not just for a quick revenue boost but as a means to strengthen their market positioning and create sustained impact.
Let’s dive in.
Holiday Marketing 2024: Actionable Data and Insights for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Beyond
In this article you’ll learn…
5 Things Brands Should Focus on To Win Black Friday
Success in the BFCM landscape requires a mix of strategic planning, data-driven insights and adaptive tactics. Here’s a breakdown of the five key focus areas to help FLB brands nail their Black Friday marketing strategy this season.
1. Maximizing Brand Efficiency
Maximizing brand efficiency means ensuring that every placement, collaboration and activity in your Black Friday marketing strategy drives the highest possible impact. It’s not just about achieving a broad reach or high engagement numbers; true brand efficiency measures how much value each touchpoint brings to the brand, aligning every effort with both immediate goals and long-term brand positioning.
Analyzing brand efficiency allows you to fine-tune campaigns, so that each piece of content, influencer collaboration or ad placement offers the maximum impact.
A standout example of brand efficiency comes from Gymshark, whose BFCM campaign last year set new standards in generating high Media Impact Value® (MIV®) per placement. While Nike led in overall MIV with $18 million, Gymshark topped the Average MIV per placement, reaching an impressive $10.5K compared to Nike’s $2K. This remarkable efficiency wasn’t just due to brand ambassadors; it was Gymshark’s strategic use of the Influencer Voice—particularly in selecting and leveraging the right tiers of influencers—that amplified its Black Friday sale effectively. By tapping into influencers who deeply resonated with their target audience, Gymshark maximized each placement’s value, nearly doubling its MIV across BFCM and holiday campaigns.
Putting it into practice:
To replicate this approach, start by carefully selecting and analyzing each potential activity and partnership, focusing on both reach and value. Rather than just seeking large audiences, invest in influencer tiers and media placements that offer strong engagement and alignment with your brand, which will ultimately create a higher return per placement while leaving lasting impressions on their audiences. By focusing on the efficiency of each element within your Black Friday advertising, you’ll create a campaign that delivers not only visibility but lasting brand value.
2. Using a Voice-Centric Approach
In our Holiday Marketing 2024 Report, over 50% of brands surveyed said they are placing influencers at the forefront of their BFCM strategies. But influencers are just one of the Voices that shape the customer journey. That’s why a Voice-Centric approach is so crucial.
A Voice-Centric approach empowers brands to identify and maximize the Voices—whether Influencers, Celebrities, Media, Owned Media or Brand Partners—that are most impactful for their Black Friday marketing strategy. By taking this approach, your brand can allocate budgets more strategically, ensuring each investment amplifies the Voices that truly drive engagement, awareness or conversion.
Without this targeted approach, campaigns can easily miss the mark, leaving opportunities on the table to reach specific audiences through the right Voices. By blending the strengths of celebrity endorsements, influencer tiers, traditional media and owned media, brands can create a balanced, multi-layered campaign that resonates across segments and channels.
Examples highlighted in our report are Gymshark and Pretty Little Thing, who have leveraged a combination of Mega and All-Star Influencers alongside owned content to deliver a more cohesive and impactful brand message.
Putting it into practice:
As you plan your BFCM marketing strategy, use AI-driven platforms to track the data and evaluate the impact of different Voices on your brand’s performance. Using a data-driven approach allows you to fine-tune your ideal Voice Mix, ensuring that each placement and collaboration adds measurable value.
One crucial aspect of this is prioritizing Voices that align with your goals—for example, blending celebrity endorsements for widespread appeal with micro-influencers for authenticity, and then amplifying these efforts with Owned Media. By taking a Voice-Centric view, you can more effectively optimize your campaigns to maximize reach, engagement and ROI, creating a powerful strategy that builds brand loyalty well beyond BFCM.
3. Tailoring Your Message for Different Voices
Building on the point above: Knowing which Voices to leverage is one thing, but it’s also about understanding how to adjust your messaging and campaign specifics for each. One case study we look at in our report is Pretty Little Thing. The British fashion label used Owned Media to promote discounts to its existing customer base (very successfully), while simultaneously using Influencers to attract new shoppers with aspirational images. This is a great example of how different Voices can be approached in different ways to meet specific goals.
By tailoring your message, you’re able to capitalize on the strengths of each Voice, creating a campaign that feels more authentic and personalized.
Putting it into practice:
As you refine your Black Friday marketing strategy, customize your messaging to fit each Voice’s strengths. For example, use Owned channels for personalized, offer-driven content to engage loyal customers, Influencers to create aspirational visuals that attract new customers, and Media to build trust and awareness. Adjusting your approach for each Voice not only broadens your reach but also deepens engagement, creating a more cohesive, impactful campaign.
4. Understanding Regional Nuances
What works for your brand in one region may not work in another. Understanding and responding to regional nuances is key, whether you’re breaking into new markets or working to dominate existing ones. As such, your BFCM marketing must take regional differences into account—especially now that these events have spread in popularity all over the world.
One powerful example from our report is Puma, which leveraged regional insights by partnering with local influencers and celebrities to amplify its brand message. In India, a single post featuring cricket icon Virat Kohli contributed an impressive 33% of Puma’s total MIV during Black Friday, underscoring the strength of a regionally aligned strategy.
Taking the time to understand these nuances enables brands to adjust their messaging, partnerships and even product offerings to better fit each market. For instance, a brand might emphasize discounts and product availability in regions where price sensitivity is high while focusing on exclusivity and limited editions in markets that value premium experiences.
Putting it into practice:
As you plan your Black Friday marketing strategy, identify key regional differences that could impact campaign effectiveness. Collaborate with local influencers or celebrities who resonate with the market, and tailor your messaging to reflect regional preferences. By aligning with local tastes and behaviors, you’ll create campaigns that feel relevant and authentic, driving stronger results across diverse markets.
5. Leveraging Data and Metrics
Last but not least, we can’t overstate the importance of leveraging real-time metrics, advanced analytics and AI-based tools if you want to drive home the most impressive BFCM results in your brand’s history.
A data-driven approach will allow you to track performance across channels and understand the true return on investment of each campaign element. This is particularly valuable during high-stakes events like BFCM, where quick adjustments based on live data can be the difference between good and great results.
According to our Holiday Marketing 2024 Report, over 40% of surveyed FLB professionals are using MIV to evaluate campaigns across regions and channels. This unified metric provides a holistic view of campaign effectiveness, sidestepping the inconsistencies of platform-specific data. Nearly half (44%) are also leveraging AI-powered tools for real-time insights, enabling them to monitor and adjust campaigns in response to emerging trends and audience behaviors.
Brands that don’t take advantage of these tools aren’t just missing an opportunity; they’re setting themselves at a disadvantage. Your competitors are keeping a finger on the pulse of their performance and making real-time adjustments to their campaigns—that means you should be too.
Putting it into practice:
Invest in tools that provide real-time data and cross-platform metrics to guide your Black Friday advertising strategy. Use insights from MIV and AI-powered analytics to monitor campaign performance continuously, making adjustments as needed to enhance reach, engagement and overall ROI. By prioritizing data and metrics, you’ll create campaigns that are optimized for the greatest possible impact—and that you can build on year after year for non-stop improvement and growth.
Ready to Build Long-Term Brand Value This Black Friday and Beyond?
BFCM shouldn’t just be about achieving year-end sales targets. As the case studies in our report highlight, the most successful brands are those using the occasion to deepen their community connections, strengthen their brand position and amplify their presence.
By focusing on the above five areas, you too can use BFCM to both boost immediate sales and build long-term value for your brand.
For more insights into how key players in the FLB industry are approaching their BFCM marketing, download our full Holiday Marketing 2024 Report now.
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By Launchmetrics Content Team
The Launchmetrics content team is always on the lookout for new trends in the fashion and technology sector. We are geeks with style and lovers of good stories!
