These days, retailers are using any excuse for a sale. What used to be the usual Christmas sales and Back to School sales have now mushroomed into Columbus Day sales and Black-Friday-in-July sales.
One month of the year, though, has long left retailers (at least in the U.S.) scratching their heads - what holiday can you possibly promote in August? Short of Back to School sales with early starts (and August isn't even early; I can clearly recall seeing BTS specials in newspaper ads back in June), my adopted home state, North Carolina, has chosen to make its own "holiday": Tax-Free weekend.
These "holidays" have, of course, lead to every retailer under the sun advertised how you can "save big with Tax-Free Weekend sales!" The thing that really gets me though, is this: I received an email from a certain sporting-goods retailer (who I will not name here) with the subject line: "Shop Tax Free in Honor of Your State's Tax Free Holiday!"
In HONOR of? What a bizarre choice of phrase. It was rather offensive when some stores suggested we "honor" the veterans by shopping their Blowout Veterans' Day Sale - but why would you use "in honor of" here? Not only is that particular weekend not a "holiday", it's not in "honor" of anything!
File this one under "Things That Tick Off Email Marketers"...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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