Late in November 1998, a British newspaper alerted its readers to a strange quirk of American culture. At 5am on the day after Thanksgiving, queues were forming at US shopping malls, and the roads were busy with more would-be shoppers. It was called “Black Friday”, explained the reporter, the day when retailers could expect to see their bottom lines magically go from red to black. And what was selling this year? Fluffy robots called Furby dolls. By 6.05am, the main toyshop inside one mall in Boston had sold out of its entire stock of Furby dolls. The Guardian’s librarians believe that this is the first mention of Black Friday in any British national newspaper. A quarter of a century later, your Furby may be a relic but Black Friday has gone global.
Marketing changes our norms, and the eight weeks of Christmas broadcasts are the industry’s yearly jamboree. It’s forecast that this month and next, a record £9.5bn will be blown on advertising, more than the UK government spends on prisons in a year. This is the philosophy of “spending like there’s no tomorrow” – literally, given the climate crisis. Once Christmas has passed, the adverts will offer up many alternative ways to fry the planet.
