Black Friday is a globally recognised day where retailers offer specials and discounted prices on products and services, just before the festive season shopping kicks in. Black Friday has increased significantly in popularity over the years, particularly from a social media and digital perspective.
The high levels of talkability and engagement around Black Friday on platforms like Twitter and Facebook have become an exciting opportunity for brands to spark the interest of consumers. It is evident that consumers are always up for some bargain deals and giveaways, although many are often adamant to go to a shopping mall on such a busy day like Black Friday.
FNB saw this as an opportunity to bring Black Friday directly to the consumer by using the hashtag, #BlackFridayMe.
In line with FNB's brand promise, they wanted to demonstrate how they are helping our customers on Black Friday by surprising them with 'random acts of kindness' in a completely unexpected way.
The Concept
To turn Black Friday "Turq" (turquoise is FNB's main brand CI colour) with #BlackFridayMe! Black Friday can often be a frustrating experience for customers queueing for long periods of time to receive discounted items.
We created a social experiment to listen, help, resolve frustrations, and surprise FNB customers by making their Black Friday wishes come true. Randomly selected Twitter users that engaged with the #BlackFridayMe hashtag were rewarded various gifts and vouchers from FNB partners to make their Black Friday a little sweeter.
Pre-Black Friday
Twitter users were encouraged to retweet to opt-in to receive daily tips and information on what special online deals and discounts they can expect from FNB's eBucks store leading up to Black Friday. We wanted to help customers prepare for Black Friday and give subscribers an opportunity to have early access to some awesome exclusive Black Friday eBucks deals.
Digital billboards and selected social executions acted as campaign teaser elements, seeing in #BlackFridayMe hashtag with no further explanation, to create curiosity and drive awareness. In addition to this, we also had a team of influencers who seeded in the #BlackFridayMe concept on social media in the week leading up to the campaign.
On Black Friday
We created a Twitter First View video to drive engagement and participation, as well as booked a promoted trend for the hashtag #BlackFridayMe. We also made use of live in-stream videos to further amplify and drive engagement with our Black Friday content. This was supported by executions showcasing the eBucks deals on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram stories, as well as Snap Ads and a gamified Snapchat Logo Lens.
We hosted a live war room of experts to design, publish and promote real-time content and offer online assistance on behalf of FNB. By applying social listening to some of the frustrations and Black Friday anxiety that FNB customers were sharing online, we were able to turn some of their negative experiences into positive ones.
We were able to connect with individual customers by responding to their concerns and spontaneously gifting them surprise gifts and vouchers in the name of #BlackFridayMe. For example, if a customer could not get their hands on a discounted deal in time because of long queues, we sent them a virtual voucher to brighten up their #BlackFriday.
For customers who were not sure if they had enough funds to purchase some deals they had an eye on, we advised them on how they can use FNB's money management tools to enhance their shopping experience, for example, check their balance or using the FNB Banking App, or making use of cardless cash withdrawals.
We also updated digital billboards throughout the day, sharing some of the fun social media conversations and funny, surprised and thankful responses with the general public.
By listening, helping and resolving some of the concerns and requests from our online audience, customers actively engaged with #BlackFridayMe throughout the day and really appreciated FNB's efforts to turn #BlackFriday Turq!
Executions were done on the following platforms:
