I was disappointed to be asked to spend money to celebrate International Women’s Day. No, Rockmans, first of all it is the Year Of Buying Nothing, second of all I’m not loving what you are selling lately, and thirdly, this is a bit tacky and tasteless.
I know your marketing department is desperate to find “themes” to email everyone each day, but L’Occitane did a better job by just wishing me a Happy International Women’s Day and inviting me to celebrate Melbourne Fashion Week with a special offer. And they aren’t selling clothes!
Definite side eye from me to retailers asking me to spend money for this reason, and if I remember correctly they are some of the same ones who asked me to celebrate Black Friday in much the same way, which two things, that has a very different bushfire related meaning in our country and secondly Aussie retailers STOP trying to make American retail things happen in our country pretty please?
Almost every retailer I subscribe to mentioned Black Friday and in one not so lovely moment one Australian retailer called it Black Fri-Yay. Nope, not buying anything from YOU for a while. I know you retailers think none of this is important and nobody is reading your emails but some of us are, and some of us are not loving what we see.
I’m not going to buy something to celebrate bushfires and though it was a very long time ago and probably these folks have forgotten all about it in their quest to get everyone spending money, Black Friday was arguably the worst bushfire disaster to happen in this country ever, and when you search for Black Friday now on google you mostly get sales related junk. From Wikipedia –
The Black Friday bushfires of 13 January 1939, in Victoria, Australia, were among the worst natural bushfires (wildfires) in the world. Almost 20,000 km² (4,942,000 acres, 2,000,000 ha) of land was burned, 71 people died, several towns were entirely destroyed and the Royal Commission that resulted from it led to major changes in forest management.
Over 1,300 homes and 69 sawmills were burned, and 3,700 buildings were destroyed. It was calculated that three-quarters of the State of Victoria was directly or indirectly affected by the disaster. The Royal Commission noted that “it appeared the whole State was alight on Friday, 13 January 1939”
Yes, that seems to be a great reason to get out my wallet and shop up a storm, the deaths of 71 people. What a brilliant idea, NOT!
Well I’ve learned something there as I had no idea about that meaning of Black Friday. I’m not a fan of the Americanisation that retailers seem determined to force on us I must admit – not least as while in the States it actually serves a purpose, over here it’s purely manufactured, and I’m guessing the same is true in Australia.
I have unsubscribed from every possible store etc. I look for sales of something I want to buy instead of waiting for them to bug me every day in my inbox.