Black Friday has not been something that has been heavily promoted via offline media by Dutch advertisers in previous years, however this year we watched TV spend increase 8% just on Black Friday.

Specific sales were promoted on TV by Telecoms and retailers with supermarket giants Albert Heijn running specific Black Friday messaging for the first time, and telecoms brand Ziggo running a strong offer across their ‘all-in’ product.

But, did the increase in advertising spend drive the market?
Neither Praxis nor Ziggo saw much of an uplift in their traffic on Friday (reported by Similar Web).

Black Friday searches were at an all-time high this year when looking at Google trends over the last 5 years.

When we look at the top searches around Black Friday, four out of the five top queries are for electronic retailers, and Media Markt saw crowds similar to that of the US Black Friday madness, although nobody died.

Over the Black Friday period 10 million payments were made online, a 38% increase on last year and 72% higher than usual. In fact, online sales were so high that Post NL warned that there may be delays in delivery as they struggled to handle the volume.

However, not all sectors benefit from the phenomenon, with wallet app provider Stocard reporting that supermarkets and DIY stores do not reap the same benefits as online retailers. The card (which is a loyalty card app) reported that supermarket sales over Black Friday were only 0.4% higher than an average weekend. In comparison, the electronic sector increased by 84%, and retailers increased by 25% even though there was little promotion from the sector. 

All Response Media viewpoint
There is no debate that Black Friday has reached our shores, the real question is whether advertisers need or should spend. It is evident that consumers are looking for electronic deals and they also expect these deals, so regardless of whether Bol.com or Coolblue advertise, people are going to go to their sites to find deals. The other issue that has arisen in the Netherlands is wide reporting of the fact that a lot of the deals are not actually different from what is usually offered, and people are not fooled by simply putting a ‘Black Friday’ sticker on it. Whilst you don’t want to miss out on sales because competitors have a strong sale, advertisers need to check that firstly, their product fits into what people are looking for and that the offer is strong enough to demand a slice of the consumer’s Black Friday spending.

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