Let’s talk about something that might sound like marketing heresy: not every brand should participate in Black Friday.
There. It’s been said.
Right now, every brand and their cousin is planning their Black Friday strategy, building their discount codes, prepping their “biggest sale of the year” messaging. The pressure to participate is enormous. Your competitors are doing it. Every marketing email you receive is about Black Friday prep. The entire industry seems to be screaming that if you’re not going big on Black Friday, you’re missing out.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: for some brands, participating in Black Friday isn’t just ineffective, it’s actively damaging to everything you’ve built.
This is particularly true for luxury, premium, and aspirational brands. The ones that have spent years building brand equity, positioning themselves as special, exclusive, or worth the investment. The brands where the price point isn’t just about covering costs and margin, it’s part of the brand promise itself.
If you’re a luxury jewellery brand, a high-end skincare line, a premium interiors company, or any brand where exclusivity and quality are core to your positioning, this is for you.
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The Black Friday Trap for Premium Brands
Black Friday was built for a certain type of commerce. Big ticket electronics. Mass market fashion. Products where people are genuinely waiting for a discount to make a purchase they were planning anyway. It’s a shopping event designed around volume, deals, and the thrill of getting something for less.
But that entire framework contradicts what premium brands are built on.
When a luxury brand participates in Black Friday, here’s what actually happens. You spend weeks, maybe months, building up to a massive discount event. You train your customers – the ones who just paid full price for your products – that if they’d just waited, they could have saved 30%. You attract a completely different customer profile, one that’s motivated primarily by price rather than brand affinity. You position your products as “things that go on sale” rather than “investments worth making.”
And the worst part? It’s incredibly difficult to undo.
The Psychology of Luxury Pricing
There’s a reason why truly luxury brands – the Hermès, the Chanel, the ones at the very top – don’t participate in Black Friday. It’s not because they’re being snobbish or difficult. It’s because they understand something fundamental about luxury psychology: part of what makes luxury products valuable is their resistance to discount.
When someone buys a £2,000 necklace or a £400 moisturiser, they’re not just buying the physical product. They’re buying the story, the status, the feeling of owning something that not everyone can have. They’re investing in something that holds its value, both literally and psychologically.
The moment that product goes on sale for 40% off, several things happen in the customer’s mind. The person who just bought at full price feels foolish. The person considering a purchase at full price decides to wait for the next sale. The person who buys during the sale doesn’t feel the same attachment to the product because they know they got it “cheap.”
You’ve essentially told everyone that your pricing is negotiable, your products aren’t as special as you claimed, and patience is rewarded with significant discounts.
The Customer Quality Problem
Black Friday attracts a specific type of customer, and for premium brands, they’re often not the right customers.
These are shoppers who are explicitly motivated by getting a deal. They’re comparing prices across multiple brands, looking for the biggest percentage off, and making decisions based primarily on discount depth rather than brand alignment or product quality. They’re less likely to become repeat customers, more likely to return products, and generally have lower lifetime value.
None of this makes them bad people, they’re just shopping with a different mindset than your ideal customer. Your ideal customer is someone who chooses your brand because they value what you represent, not because you were having a better sale than your competitors.
When you participate in Black Friday, you’re actively recruiting customers who may never buy from you at full price again. You’re building an audience that waits for sales, rather than an audience that values your brand regardless of discounting.
The Margin Destruction
Let’s talk numbers for a moment, because the financial reality of Black Friday discounting for premium brands is often worse than it appears.
If your products typically have a 60% margin and you offer a 40% discount, you’re not making 20% margin, you’re making almost nothing once you factor in the increased customer service costs, higher return rates, and additional marketing spend required to drive Black Friday traffic.
For premium brands, this is particularly painful because you’ve likely invested significantly in product quality, packaging, customer experience, and brand building. All of those investments are what justify your price point. When you discount heavily, you’re essentially giving away all that investment for a short-term sales bump.
And unlike mass market brands that can make up for lower margins with significantly higher volume, premium brands often have capacity constraints, limited inventory, or products that simply can’t be produced at the scale required to make heavy discounting financially sensible.
What Happens to Brand Equity
Brand equity is fragile, particularly for premium brands. It’s built slowly through consistent positioning, quality delivery, and customer experience. But it can be damaged quickly through discounting.
When customers see your products heavily discounted, it fundamentally changes their perception of value. If a product can be 40% off, was it ever really worth the original price? If you’re willing to discount this deeply during Black Friday, why should anyone ever pay full price?
This perception shift doesn’t just affect new customers – it affects your existing customer base. The customers who’ve been happily paying full price start to feel like they’ve been overcharged. They begin to question their loyalty. They start waiting for sales before making purchases.
You’ve essentially trained your entire customer base to devalue your products.
The Alternative Approach
So if Black Friday isn’t the answer, what is?
The alternative isn’t to go dark and ignore the biggest shopping period of the year. It’s to participate on your own terms in a way that strengthens rather than weakens your brand positioning.
Some brands offer exclusive access or early shopping to their VIP customers – no discount, just privilege. Others create limited edition products specifically for the season at their regular price points. Some focus on gift services, personalisation, or elevated experiences rather than discounts.
The key is to give customers a reason to buy during this peak shopping period without devaluing your products. Create urgency through limited availability rather than limited-time pricing. Offer added value through services or exclusive products rather than slashed prices.
For some premium brands, the best Black Friday strategy is simply to maintain your positioning while everyone else is discounting. When your competitors are all shouting about their sales, being the brand that doesn’t discount can actually make you stand out. It reinforces your premium positioning and attracts customers who are specifically looking for brands that don’t participate in the race to the bottom.
The Long-Term Perspective
Here’s what’s worth remembering: Black Friday is four days. Your brand is (hopefully) forever.
The short-term revenue bump from participating in Black Friday might look attractive, but it needs to be weighed against the long-term impact on brand perception, customer quality, and pricing power. For premium brands, protecting brand equity is almost always more valuable than a single weekend of discounted sales.
The brands that successfully navigate this period are the ones that stay true to their positioning even when everyone around them is discounting. They understand that luxury isn’t about being accessible to everyone – it’s about being valuable to the right people.
Know Your Brand, Know Your Customers
Not every brand should skip Black Friday. If you’re a volume-driven business, if your customers expect and wait for your sales, if discounting doesn’t damage your brand positioning, then absolutely participate.
But if you’re a premium brand that’s built on exclusivity, quality, and aspiration, you need to seriously consider whether Black Friday aligns with your brand strategy. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you should.
The strongest brand decision you can make is the one that’s right for your business, not the one that follows what everyone else is doing.
The Graygency Perspective
We work with luxury and premium brands across jewellery, beauty, fashion, and wellness. The most successful ones aren’t always the ones with the biggest Black Friday sales. They’re the ones with the clearest brand positioning and the discipline to protect it.
Sometimes the best marketing strategy is knowing what not to do. If Black Friday doesn’t serve your brand’s long-term goals, you don’t have to participate. And we’re here to help you navigate peak season in a way that actually strengthens your brand, whether that includes discounting or not.
The brands that thrive long-term aren’t the ones that chase every trend or participate in every shopping event. They’re the ones that know who they are and have the confidence to stay true to it.
