At the start of my career, among many other things, I did a fair bit of copywriting for the retail sector. And this work coincided with the very beginning of Black Friday.

From the start, it was creatively saturated. I can remember being sat at my desk thinking of words that rhymed with black, and churning out increasingly terrible options for tags and headers.

Underneath it all, we were having the same conversations from the start. How hard should we hit Black Friday? How big should the discounts be?

In short, how do we ensure this brand is one of the ones people are physically fighting for in Asda.

Of course, in amongst all that depravity, for other clients we were, from the beginning, noting the potential power of the “boycott”. Do we say no to all of it and build a campaign around that?

For a matter of minutes, that felt exciting – until we saw the creative from hundreds of other companies already playing that card.

And so it was, nearly 15 years ago, that Black Friday already felt like a strategic black hole. Whatever you plan feels empty. Whatever you create feels unoriginal. 

You were trapped.

15 years later, brands are in exactly the same trap – and today the trap is bigger – and shitter (what a terrific word shitter is. I must use it more).

Is there a way out of the shithole?

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