Cyber Monday’s status as the holiday shopping day with truly significant digital sales may be going the way of MySpace and AOL. Ad messages from leading retailers specifically mentioning Cyber Monday deals were considerably fewer this year compared to 2014. Six major retailers (Home Depot, Kmart, Lowe’s, Old Navy, Sears and Walmart) dropped Cyber Monday messaging altogether.
While these changes may be due in part to consumer weariness with these promotional events, they are also likely linked to changes in how people are shopping, according to a report by Jon Swallen, CRO of Kantar Media.
“The reduced advertising emphasis on Cyber Monday in particular is an acknowledgement that online shopping has become an important sales channel across the entire holiday season, and no longer just a one-day promotional event,” said Swallen in a statement. “Further evidence of this is the 2015 ad messaging from retailers telling customers they can get the same deal in-store or online.”
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Other notable data points from Kantar Media included:
• Walmart and Amazon led the pack in total ad spending for November 2015, spending $101 million and $73 million respectively on a combination of national and local TV, online display, local radio and newspaper advertising.
• Macy’s, Target and Kohl’s took the next three slots, spending $62 million, $60 million and $45 million respectively.
• The top 13 retailers analyzed (which included Best Buy, JCPenney and Home Goods) spent a combined $535 million in November. Spending during Thanksgiving week (Nov. 22-30) soaked up 36% of the month’s ad spending.
• In addition to spending heavily on traditional media, Amazon dominated the social sphere during November as well. The pure-play giant published 884 posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, accounting for 39% of the total from the 13 retailers studied by Kantar Media partner Unmetric. Amazon was followed by Macy’s,with 274 posts, and JCPenney, with 242 posts.
