With fewer consumers planning to take advantage of the sales this year, Newsworks uses RAMetrics to demonstrate how retailers can utilise publishers’ brand benefits in an increasingly competitive market
Whether it’s the novelty of Black Friday wearing off or the cost of living crisis continuing to bite, the trend is clear: a Retail Economics report shows only just over a fifth of people will be taking part in Black Friday sales this year, down from 25% in 2021.
It also found that spend will be down, with three quarters of those expecting to spend this weekend reporting they will spend less than last year. With 40% of retailers expecting to see higher demand than in 2021, that may leave some disappointed.
Newsworks’ RAMetrics research shows how the brand benefits of news brands are amplified for three key sectors vying for this year’s Black Friday customers.
Large retail
Department stores, shopping centres, malls and online stores perform particularly strongly across the board, scoring recall averages of 64% in print and 51% online. Meanwhile, the average news brand ad scores 56% for print and 37% for online.
They are also easily recognisable (71% for print and 75% for online vs 51% and 56% for respective news brand benchmarks), outperforming the average on engagement by six percentage points (44% for print, 46% for online) and are particularly effective in being easy to understand (75% print, 80% online).
However, retailers will want to convert attention into action on Black Friday. Brands from this sector outperform the average by seven percentage points in both print (28%) and online (34%).
Meanwhile, retail print ads encourage almost a quarter to part with their cash (23%) and 38% to recommend the brand to others. Digital will encourage three in 10 to visit the brand’s website, seven percentage points up on the news brand average.
Clothes and shoes
Another Black Friday staple, apparel brands also see strong uplifts on the news brand benchmark; those retailers achieved average recalls of 68% in print display (up 12 percentage points) and 42% for online (up five).
Retail Economics finds under 45s are more likely to be buying in this year’s sales and recall is particularly strong among this age group, hitting 71% in print.
Meanwhile, clothing brands hit strong recognition scores: an overall 55% in print hits 57% among under 45s. Both outperform the average benchmark of 52%.
Almost four in 10 both have a positive impression of apparel retailers using print display (38%) and find it appealing (39%).
Finally, when it comes to taking action, clothing brand ads drive a fifth of readers to visit the website (19% print; 21% online) and to visit the store (20% print; 22% online).
Technology
One thing Black Friday sales have become synonymous with is fantastic deals on top tech and online news brand platforms can offer advantages to those brands.
While engagement and action metrics perform similarly to the news brand average, tech brands’ average ad recall sits six percentage points higher (43%). Online news brands also offer good cut through for tech during this busy period, with brand recognition sitting eight percentage points higher than the news brand benchmark at 64%.
Driving recall, engagement and action
From recall to action, news brands can deliver strong results to brands at the sharp end of what could be challenging Black Friday sales in 2022 and beyond. Retailers wanting to be front of mind and drive consumers to action should put both print and online news brands on the plan.
To work out the perfect mix for print and online for your retail brand and budget, check out our Bottom Line retail sector research here.
