Special Crossover Episode: The Shopper’s Black Friday Playbook

In this week’s special holiday crossover episode, Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack is joined by Danny Parisi, host of the Glossy Podcast, and Gabi Barkho, host of the Modern Retail podcast, to unpack all things Black Friday. 

The three reporters start by sharing their own experiences and plans for navigating Black Friday as a shopper, then unpack some of the buzziest activations and sales strategies today. This includes both discounting and non-discounting strategies, value-focused sales, bundles and collaborations, among other tactics. The trio also walks through emerging and reemerging trends, like catalogs, gift guides and fragrance-focused experiential events. 

On digital gift guides and printed catalogs
Parisi: “For gift guides this year, it’s a convergence of old and new. The print catalog is back. Nordstrom, famously, in September, went back to doing a print catalog for the holiday. It’s 100 pages long [and features] 800 products. A lot of it is very focused on lower-priced items, under $100, which is also mirrored in their New York City store. If you’ve been to the one in Manhattan, they have two entire floors just dedicated to gifts under $100. … Amazon is doing a catalog. They’ve done one for a couple of years now for kids, but they’re fully digital, and they’re doing a print catalog. … Then on the flip side, there’s ChatGPT. … I’ve seen reports that around 60% of people will use AI to find deals or search for deals this holiday season.”

On creating thoughtful collaborations that stand out 
Barkho: “Something I wrote about recently [is] brands that you wouldn’t really think of as fitting [together] into a box as part of a gift set, are collaborating for holiday gift sets. The idea is that you’re tapping the other brand’s audience, and vice versa, and you’re creating a limited-edition, unique product set. I talked to [execs at wine company] Josh Cellars [because] they put together a prosecco and candle set with Hotel Lobby candle company. They are seeing a lot of excitement around that, which makes a lot of sense [because it’s] a hostess gift or a New Year’s gift. So, a lot of brands collaborate on gifts to draw the eyeballs, but then, these aren’t necessarily discounted. The idea is that you want to bundle and create this value perception.”

On experiential holiday pop-ups 
Lebsack: “[One trend we’ve been tracking] is using scent as a sort of proximity marketing tool around shopping [locations]. We’ve seen Nest do this in the past, scenting Fifth Avenue [in New York City] with their holiday fragrances, and I kind of thought that was a one-off. And then this year, I know Gabi [Barkho] and I have both seen a couple brands that are doing this again. Bath and Body Works is doing what they call a ‘scent takeover’ at Grand Central in New York, where they’re going to scent the whole area with some of their holiday scents. They’re also doing movie theater ‘scent-igrations,’ where they have ads for their products, and they’re also scenting the air. … There was one more, as well, that I found from Scentbird — a fragrance subscription box. They scented a corner in SoHo in the middle of November as sort of a collaboration with Givenchy.”