White, (RED) or Green Friday anyone?

ASDA have stopped the offer-led-consumer-riot that is BLACK FRIDAY!

Phew.

It has always appeared a bit desperate to me and hopefully less OAPs will have to wrestle for 42″Plasmas down those aisles.

Making Granny Riot the new Pussy Riot.

Surely any retailer worth their onions would not still default to such desperation?

They all seem to have got lazy and jumped on the band wagon, rather than inventing their own bright, marketing initiatives.

I’ve always loved brands who don’t follow.

Who invent something new.

American Express’s Small Business Saturday is a brilliant, simple and scalable piece of purpose lead marketing genius done by the ever great Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

It’s really hard to make a new ‘Day’ idea.

Ever since Christmas, the bar’s been high.

But they did it so well.

Helping the little guys win.

With downloadable collateral and hitting the zeitgeist of backing local craft years before it became fashionable.

Again, I think if we back a movement with a purpose, that has a genuine and transparent connection to the brand behind it, they tend to fly.

Whilst in Canada recently, I worked for The&Partnership, evolving the brilliant TELUS Day Of Giving for our genuinely giving clients who have been on a mission for years helping Canadians thrive.

Their thousands of employees do grass route activities with communities every year. With the purpose of using technology backed by their own money, to connect communities that need the help.

We also did a sprint on a Love Project for MOVEMEBER which went down really well when we proactively pitched it.

Those guys are doing amazing things for physical and mental health and now own a month! Respect.

I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great to set up alternative ideas that clash directly with BLACK FRIDAY?

How about ‘Green Friday’ that only sell Green brands?

Google could just direct your search results to Green companies.

By commissioning folks like Paul J. de Ridder and  Yme Gorter that had this brilliant idea for D&AD.

Or ‘Red Friday’ for the ever brilliant (RED) AIDS campaign.

Right, I’m off to get my elderflower-infused-moustache-wax from a local craftsmen and rent some DVDs from the library, so I can bunker down on BLACK Friday and avoid those Granny riots.