Black Friday marketers push for greater spending

Black Friday,the huge shopping day after AmericanThanksgiving,used to be a single day. Butas marketers try to squeeze as much money outof Black Friday as possible, it now extends from Thursday to Sunday. And some marketers aregoing to even greater lengths.

One strategy U.S. retailers use to claim a larger share of Black Friday spending is to lock in some purchase intentions before their competitors sales even start.

Typically, the way they dothis is by getting consumers to subscribe to email or Twitter alerts that give advance notice ofBlack Friday sale items a couple of days early.

Last year, Kohls went further than simply giving advance notice of Black Friday saleitems. E-alert subscribers could actually purchase those items starting two full days beforeThanksgiving.

Hardcore shoppersmay have no problem lining upearly, but less experienced younger consumers are sometimes less enthusiastic about joiningthe early-morning throngs.

So last year, Best Buy invited shoppers to post Vine videos of theirtime in line, and the best videos were retweeted for all the world to see.

Another thing that keeps some shoppers from lining up early is the risk that all the best itemswill be sold out before they get into the store. So in 2013, Wal-Mart came up with this solution.

With Wal-Marts one-hour in-stock guarantee on select products, as long as you got into the storeduring the first hour, you were guaranteed to find those products.

While most Black Friday retailers encourage shoppersnot just to buy hugequantities, but also to buy early, in 2011 one retailer urged shoppers not to buy at all.

Counterintuitively, the apparent honesty of the ad helped push Patagonia sales one thirdhigher.

So last Black Friday, the company sought to repeat its success by releasing a film thatencouraged customers to repair their clothes rather than buying new. As expected, the ployonce again increased sales.

But theres one Black Friday ad that urges you not to buy andactually means it.

Vancouver-based Adbusters is behind both the ad and Buy Nothing Day itself, whichcoincides with Black Friday.

As the holiday season approaches, consumers have a choice. We can buy whatever retailersadvertise, or we can buy whatever retailers winkingly tell us not to buy.

Or we can buy nothingat all, and rest assured that the one thing we wont get for Christmas is debt.