Police officers in Philadelphia HATED this day so much they named it Black Friday.

Police officers in Philadelphia HATED this day so much they named it Black Friday. Retailers tried to change the name to Big Friday. X It failed (big surprise I know). So they did something smarter instead The term Black Friday was first used in the 1960s by Philadelphia police officers. And it had nothing to do with shopping profits. Police used it to describe the chaos that hit the city every year the day after Thanksgiving when suburban shoppers and tourists flooded downtown for holiday shopping and the annual Army Navy football game held on Saturday. The day was full of traffic jams, shoplifting and other crimes that the police had to deal with. It was the opposite of bringing Holiday cheer to the masses. Police officers worked brutal 12 hour shifts dealing with traffic jams and overcrowded sidewalks and shoplifting. It was such a nightmare for law enforcement that the term caught on fast among local merchants and shoppers in Philadelphia. Black Friday was the day police officers dreaded most...not a day they celebrated. This is where it gets really interesting. Philly businesses absolutely hated the negative name. In 1961, Philadelphia merchants and the Greater Philadelphia Merchants' Council tried to fix the problem with support from local PR executives. So what big idea did they come up with? Rebrand Black Friday as Big Friday. The media cooperated and started promoting the beauty of Christmas decorated downtown Philadelphia while families shopped together. The rebrand completely failed. People kept calling it Black Friday no matter what the PR team tried. So retailers took a totally different approach in the 1980s. They couldn't change the name so they changed the story behind it. Instead of fighting the term they spun it to mean the day retailers finally turned a profit and went from being in the red to being in the black. The earliest published reference to this new Black Friday meaning appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on November 28, 1981. This reframed story caught on fast and spread across the country by the late 1980s. The exact same name that police officers used to describe an awful day was now something retailers celebrated and actively promoted to millions of shoppers all across America. By 2003 Black Friday officially became the busiest shopping day of the year in America. Then in 2005 the National Retail Federation noticed a massive spike in online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving. They coined it Cyber Monday. That first Cyber Monday did $484 million in online sales. By 2020 Cyber Monday hit a record $10.8 billion in a single day. Today Black Friday is a true global shopping phenomenon. In 2024 Black Friday online sales reached ~$10 billion in the US alone. Globally shoppers spent over $40 billion online during Black Friday in 2022. What started as a term for traffic nightmares and police headaches is now responsible for driving hundreds of billions in annual retail sales worldwide. Follow for more expert daily marketing ideas, case studies, news, insights and more! < maxfinn Maxwell Finn 1,858 posts 120K followers 871 following Growing brands with ads since 2012 $500M+ in sales from ads Click link for me to audit your ad accounts Married to @lg_the_ladyhokie unicorninnovations.com/lgAudit Follow Message And if you're enjoying this post be sure to save it for later and share it with a fellow marketer.