Used GA data and voice of customer research to reposition Black Friday around quality rather than discount, breaking sales records and getting adopted group-wide.
→ Record campaign performance. The repositioned strategy was adopted across brands the following year.
Problem
Black Friday had become commoditised across the market, with competitors competing purely on discount depth and Averys' own campaign following the same flattening pattern.
Context
This built directly on the customer data work from the Averys turnaround, applying the same evidence-led approach specifically to the peak promotional strategy.
Business objective
Reposition the peak trading promotional strategy so it could cut through a crowded market and improve commercial performance, based on data rather than instinct or habit.
Customer/user objective
Averys customers needed a Black Friday proposition that reflected what actually drove them to buy, rather than another discount race that was flattening response rates year on year.
Constraints
Competitors were already deep into discount-led positioning, so a repositioning had to be different enough to cut through without simply copying the market's approach at a smaller scale.
Stakeholders
The full agency and internal marketing team, who needed to be briefed against one repositioned strategy rather than continuing the previous discount-led approach.
Research and discovery
I pulled the GA data from the previous year's campaign and analysed traffic, conversion and basket behaviour, then ran a voice of customer exercise to understand what actually drove people in this audience to buy.
Options considered
I considered going deeper on discount to compete more directly with the market, versus repositioning around quality and curation based on what the data showed. I chose repositioning, since going deeper on discount was already visibly not working for competitors either.
Prioritisation
Getting the GA data and customer research findings clear came before any creative work, since building a new campaign around the wrong insight would have repeated the same mistake with different branding.
Delivery
I used the research findings to reposition the campaign entirely, renaming it to the Black Tag Event and building the creative, email and digital activity around the quality proposition rather than price, then briefed the full agency and internal team against that repositioned strategy.
Decisions made
Repositioning around quality rather than matching competitors on discount was the decision that mattered most, it ran against the market's direction but matched what the customer data actually showed this audience responded to.
Trade-offs
Moving away from a discount-led position meant accepting the campaign wouldn't compete purely on price against the market. I judged that worthwhile since the data showed discount depth wasn't what this audience responded to anyway.
Business outcome
The Black Tag Event broke Averys' previous Black Friday records, and the following year Laithwaites ran the same approach across its own Black Friday activity.
Customer outcome
Customers responded to a campaign built around quality and curation, the things the research showed they actually valued, rather than another discount-led push.
Lessons learned
When an entire market is competing on the same lever, discount, the data-backed alternative is worth testing even if it goes against the grain of what competitors are doing.
What I'd improve today
I would test the quality-led positioning on a smaller scale earlier in the year, so there was a proof point ahead of the full peak campaign investment.
