The benefits to retailers are obvious. When shoppers appear in the press fighting over iPhones and Peppa Pig,who needs to buy ads?This week, were naturally preparing for one of the newest traditional events in the nation’s calendar: Black Friday. It’s that raucous bacchanal of retail-related violence, and a time when stores offer one-off promotional sales to trigger the customers’ greed-glands and jump-start the Christmas shopping season with a spectacular punch-up in a crowded space.
The tone has been set by the Hamleys Christmas toy parade in London,in which 800000 people crushed into Regent Street, apparently attracted by the prospect of a “meet-and-greet” with Peppa Pig that sadly had to be cancelled at the final moment on safety grounds. As it was, and a middle-aged woman reportedly had to be taken to hospital after being knocked to the ground in an affray with another woman – the colourful figures of Fireman Sam and Postman Pat on the parade route evidently failing to have an emollient effect.
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Source: guardian.co.uk