Monday, November 29, 2010
Cyber Monday
Today is Cyber Monday, the day that we are all to go to work then get online to shop for the holidays. It says something about our culture that a period, which once was a religious and family time, has become a mercantile contest. The erosion of the original intent of the holidays has become an avalanche of economics. Retailers depend on this season to make their numbers for the year. Economists and reporters watch the daily and weekly numbers to get a clue to consumer intent and the overall health of the economy.
From a PR perspective, one wonders how the messages shifted over the decades, what happened to cause the change and how public behavior responded. It didn't have to happen this way, but it did. Will it continue this way permanently? That is hard to predict. There is always a possibility that public shopping habits might change, as retailers stretch the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Halloween and earlier. It is interesting to watch the desperation of the merchants to sell and their efforts to get consumers to buy. But, why do consumers go along with it?
From a PR perspective, one wonders how the messages shifted over the decades, what happened to cause the change and how public behavior responded. It didn't have to happen this way, but it did. Will it continue this way permanently? That is hard to predict. There is always a possibility that public shopping habits might change, as retailers stretch the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Halloween and earlier. It is interesting to watch the desperation of the merchants to sell and their efforts to get consumers to buy. But, why do consumers go along with it?
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