Today it is black Friday and the whole North American nation launches into the holiday season with a shopping event that has no comparison elsewhere. Yesterday I went to some shops and noticed that everything had been prepared for this major event. You had whole isles closed out and big cardboard packages full of new goods that nobody could open before today.

It looks like the preparation for a major battle, where all forces have been brought to the field and every general (store manager) has prepared the best tactical layout to meet the sudden assault that begins at 5 am and continues until late in the evening.

And it might as well be a battle because every single store will compete with the next on in attracting as many buyers as possible and in selling them as many good as possible while they are still in the store. The Internet makes no exception and you have America is the country of marketing, and you have all kind of e-mail pouring promoting all kind of stuff.

America is the country of marketing and people take it very at heart when it comes to selling and buying. Somehow it is like a huge fair opening throughout the nation. I have never seen a comparable event in Europe, where a was quantity of people was mobilized into action all in the same day. The closest thing I have seen has been some “special offer deal” organized during some fair and limited only to that fair and to that particular city.

Also in Europe shopping picks up markedly during the holiday season, but you never see a whole nation moving in unison at the same time for the same reason, except at the final of the world soccer cup. But there is a major difference: the winning of a soccer world cup can mobilize an entire nation in Europe, men, women and kids, with sudden, spontaneous and boisterous response. Everybody is on the same side of the fence, all carried away by emotion and the desire to party together in the streets.

Black Friday in the US instead is an event that sees the shops on one side and the buyers on the other, both trying to get the best out of it and both planning the whole day well in advance. It is a massive logistic event that would be probably very difficult to replicate elsewhere. I believe that no nation can beat the US on logistics and promotion capabilities, and no other nation has a comparable focus on making good deals and making money. I think that actions are the best mirror of cultures.

Roberto Mazzoni