A marketers’ dream for a good festive campaign isn’t just price cuts. A truly impactful festive campaign must become a part of the holiday experience.
Take for example, Amazon’s 2024 Black Friday campaign "Joy Ride". This poignant ad captured the thrill of finding that perfect deal, while aligning with the festive themes of giving and sharing happiness. This sort of authentic storytelling is what a marketer strives for, not only capturing attention but making shopping feel like an adventure.
It’s no secret that Black Friday and Thanksgiving campaigns drive massive revenue and customer loyalty. Online shopping during this period has exploded, with Black Friday sales reaching record highs year after year. According to Adobe Analytics, U.S. consumers spent over $9.8 billion online during Black Friday 2023, marking an increase from previous years. What’s more, it's also the start of the festive shopping season, as consumers gear up for Christmas purchases.
But crafting personalized and visually compelling campaigns manually across diverse channels is challenging—managing multi-day shopping events, maintaining brand consistency, and continuously creating eye-catching creatives and copy can overwhelm marketers.
This is where AI becomes an ally, helping marketers spark creativity, improve efficiency, and keep campaigns engaging, personal, and relevant.
How to Use AI for Black Friday and Thanksgiving Campaigns
The secret to memorable and efficient holiday campaigns is smart work—from research to visuals. Here's a clear path to follow.
1. Ideation: Research Trends and Analyze Competitors for Fresh Insights
Start by diving deep into what's capturing shoppers' attention this year. Go beyond doorbusters and discount percentages—analyze storytelling angles, ad formats, visual styles, and customer sentiment behind top-performing Black Friday campaigns. Don't overlook mobile-first strategies; the majority of Black Friday shopping now happens on smartphones, with significant traffic occurring during unconventional hours.
Look for gaps in competitors' campaigns—are there emotional themes or shopping pain points they haven't addressed? Identifying these can help you create truly unique messages.
AI prompt:
"Analyze major retailers' Black Friday 2025 campaigns to find trending product categories, emotional storytelling themes, ad formats, early-bird versus day-of messaging variations, and customer sentiment patterns. Highlight opportunities where competitors are less active or customer needs are unmet, particularly around Thanksgiving weekend shopping behaviors."
This thorough competitor and trends check grounds your creative process in current market realities, giving you a head start.
2. Campaign Planning: Map Behaviors, Segment Audiences, and Choose Channels
With insights in hand, craft a campaign calendar aligned to customer behavior—not just demographics. Separate early-bird planners who shop Thanksgiving evening, midnight deal hunters, weekend browsers, and Cyber Monday stragglers. Pick channels and moments to reach each segment effectively. Integrate voice search optimization since many use voice assistants to compare prices and find deals while multitasking during the holiday weekend.
Time your messaging around key moments (Thanksgiving Day evening, Black Friday midnight, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday) and build urgency with countdown timers and limited-stock alerts.
AI prompt:
"Develop a segmented Black Friday and Thanksgiving 2025 campaign calendar outlining specific messages, offers, and channels for early-bird shoppers, deal hunters, gift buyers, and Cyber Monday shoppers. Include voice search optimization for product comparisons and recommendations for time-triggered urgency tactics across the four-day shopping weekend."
This builds a roadmap for personalized and timely customer engagements.
3. Content Creation: Infuse Authentic Holiday Spirit and Value-Driven Storytelling
After finalizing your campaign plan, use AI to generate draft content for social media, emails, SMS, and push notifications. Then polish them with AI tools like Yarnit Humanizer to add warmth and brand voice consistency. Incorporate holiday themes like gratitude, family gatherings, gift-giving joy, and the excitement of scoring great deals. Use storytelling to link products to real holiday moments—Thanksgiving dinner preparations, family game nights, gift wrapping sessions, or treating yourself after a busy year.
Focus on personal stories in your campaigns to build genuine connections. Instead of just highlighting discounts, spotlight the experiences your products enable. Craft headlines, value propositions and FAQs from customer reviews and testimonials.
AI social media prompt:
"Write an engaging Black Friday Instagram caption promoting electronics deals. Reference the excitement of finding the perfect gift and the joy of holiday shopping. Include a clear discount percentage, create urgency with limited stock messaging, and keep the tone enthusiastic but authentic."
AI email prompt:
"Draft a Thanksgiving week email promoting home goods and kitchen essentials for customers preparing to host family gatherings. Include gentle storytelling about creating memorable moments, express gratitude for customer loyalty, and feature a clear call to action for early Black Friday access."
4. Visual Creation: Tailor Holiday Imagery to Shopping Moments
Visuals need to feel festive yet authentic to the shopping occasion. Use AI image generation tools to capture the energy of Black Friday—excited shoppers, shopping bags, countdown clocks, and holiday décor. Choose colors that balance Black Friday's bold urgency (blacks, reds, golds) with Thanksgiving's warmth (oranges, browns, autumnal tones) to build emotional connection throughout the weekend.
Mix urgency and celebration—show the thrill of deal-hunting alongside the warmth of holiday preparation to resonate with both bargain hunters and thoughtful gift-givers.
Additional Tip: Mix urgency and celebration—show the thrill of deal-hunting alongside the warmth of holiday preparation to resonate with both bargain hunters and thoughtful gift-givers.
AI prompt:
"Create a Black Friday banner featuring shopping bags, a prominent countdown timer, and subtle autumn leaves in the background. Use bold black and gold colors with vibrant red accents to convey both urgency and holiday warmth. Include space for discount percentages and clear call-to-action text."
5. Influencer Scripts: Personal & Authentic Storytelling
Once the campaign plan is ready, the next important step is reach, and what's a better choice than influencer marketing? Develop influencer scripts that weave their authentic holiday shopping experiences and traditions with your brand promotion for deeper resonance.
Connect with influencers whose values and audience match your brand to ensure authenticity. Repurpose your campaign content into multiple formats such as unboxing videos, shopping hauls, gift guides, and live shopping events to maximize engagement and reach diverse audiences.
AI Prompt:
"Please create an authentic and engaging Black Friday influencer script that naturally blends the influencer's personal holiday shopping experiences and gift-giving traditions with promotion of [INSERT BRAND NAME]'s exclusive Black Friday deals. The script should be exciting and conversational, evoking the thrill of finding perfect gifts while highlighting key product features and value propositions. Adapt the script's length and style to suit [INSERT PLATFORM, e.g., TikTok videos, YouTube shopping hauls, Instagram Stories], targeting [INSERT AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS]. Additionally, prepare a content roll-out plan that encourages sharing across multiple formats such as gift guides, unboxing videos, shopping hauls, and live shopping sessions, timed strategically around Thanksgiving evening, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday to maximize audience engagement."
Black Friday & Thanksgiving Campaign Inspirations: 3 Examples You Can Take Ideas From
Black Friday campaigns hold special significance in the marketing calendar for reasons that go deeper than quarterly sales targets. During this time, consumers are more receptive to messages centered around gratitude, family, gift-giving, and treating themselves—themes that naturally evoke emotional responses.
Apple captured this beautifully with their "Share Your Gifts" holiday campaign, which invited people to embrace their creativity and share what makes them unique. Instead of focusing solely on product features, the campaign celebrated human creativity and connection, showing how Apple products enable meaningful expression. This approach helped Apple build stronger emotional engagement by honoring the tradition of thoughtful gift-giving during the holiday season.
https://youtu.be/LGGTBd6w6Z0?si=rWabOeB386S9XIMj
With families gathering, Thanksgiving dinners being shared on social media, and Black Friday shopping becoming a cultural event, there's a natural spike in digital engagement that brands can meaningfully tap into.
REI's iconic #OptOutside campaign continues to stand out by taking a completely different approach to Black Friday. While other retailers push shopping, REI closes its stores and encourages people to spend the day outdoors with loved ones. The movement has inspired millions to share their outdoor adventures instead of shopping, creating a powerful brand positioning around values rather than discounts.
The campaign demonstrates how going against conventional wisdom—when done authentically—can build deeper customer relationships and generate massive social engagement, proving that not every Black Friday campaign needs to be about sales.
The takeaway: campaigns that combine emotional cues with smart planning build loyalty that lasts beyond the holiday season.
Planning Your AI-Powered Black Friday Campaign: Key Considerations
Implementing these AI strategies may seem daunting, but comprehensive tools like Yarnit can simplify the process. Yarnit's suite of AI-powered marketing capabilities enables you to:
- Generate authentic, brand-aligned Black Friday and Thanksgiving content across channels
- Create stunning holiday-themed visuals that capture the excitement and warmth of the season
- Develop personalized messaging that resonates with different shopper segments
- Optimize campaign timing and channel distribution for maximum impact across the four-day shopping event
Black Friday and Thanksgiving are the time to bring your brand closer to customers' hearts while driving significant revenue. Creative campaigns that connect emotionally and run smoothly across touchpoints make all the difference.
Use smart tools like Yarnit that help you plan, create, and execute campaigns from start to finish—without losing the personal, warm touch your customers expect during this special time of year.
This holiday season, let your Black Friday campaigns stand out and create lasting impressions. Give Yarnit a try and bring that holiday magic into your marketing.
