Four fashion markets, four Black Fridays
Luxury houses, performance and DTC labels, premium outerwear and premium sneakers — 30 brands advertising in Italy, 5,786 ads launched in November and December 2025. One market names Black Friday in a third of its ads. Another never says it at all.
What we found
- 0135% vs 0%
One market shouts it, one never says it
Performance and DTC labels name Black Friday in 1,116 of 3,199 ads launched in November and December. The five luxury houses: none of 808, and no discount wording either. Outerwear (5.5%) and sneakers (9.1%) sit much closer to luxury than to DTC (estimates from ad copy).
- 022.1×
Pace follows the discount, brand by brand
Performance launched at 2.06× its normal rate in the Black Friday window — but True Classic ran at 4.28× and Nike at 0.59×. Luxury's 1.63× is almost all Valentino (4.69×); without it the luxury houses ran at 1.08×, barely above normal.
- 035 days
Discount creative is built to be switched off
The median performance ad launched in the window stayed live 5 days. Luxury: 9. Sneakers: 10. Outerwear: 13. The market that leans hardest on the offer has the most disposable creative.
01The study
What we looked at
"Fashion at Black Friday" is not one behaviour. A luxury house, a DTC basics label, an outerwear brand and a sneaker brand all sell clothes into the same feed in the same week — and have almost nothing in common about how they treat the day.
We split 30 brands advertising in Italy into four markets: luxury (Gucci, Prada, Loewe, Jacquemus, Valentino), performance and DTC (Alo Yoga, Skims, True Classic, Nike), premium outerwear (Herno, K-Way, Colmar, Woolrich, Moncler, Save the Duck, Canada Goose, Napapijri) and premium sneakers (thirteen brands, from Autry and Golden Goose to Santoni and Stokton).
For each we took every ad launched between 1 November and 31 December 2025 — 5,786 ads — and asked the same questions: how many, how fast against the brand's normal pace, what the copy says, how long the ads stayed up, and, where we have enough classified video, how the openings work.
02Share of voice
30 brands launched 5,786 ads in November and December
Ads launched per market, 1 November – 31 December 2025. Counted as ads, not distinct creatives.
Four performance brands launched 55% of everything — 800 ads a brand, against 162 in luxury, 92 in sneakers and 73 in outerwear. Every market average below is a different kind of number.
03Side by side
Four markets, one window
Ads launched 1 November – 31 December 2025. Black Friday pace: launches per day in 10 Nov – 2 Dec against the market's own year average. Copy shares are estimates. Median days live runs to each ad's stop date, or to 29 September 2026 if still running. First "Black Friday" ad: the earliest launch since 1 September 2025 whose copy names it.
| Market | Brands | Ads launched | Video share | Black Friday pace | Says Black Friday | Discount wording | Median days live | First "Black Friday" ad |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxury | 5 | 808 | 35% | 1.63× | 0% | 0% | 9 | None |
| Performance / DTC | 4 | 3,199 | 32% | 2.06× | 34.9% | 43% | 5 | 27 Oct |
| Outerwear | 8 | 584 | 23% | 1.65× | 5.5% | 9.6% | 13 | 3 Nov |
| Sneakers | 13 | 1,195 | 22% | 1.09× | 9.1% | 14.4% | 10 | 27 Oct |
The copy splits the markets cleanly: performance at 35% naming the day, luxury at 0%. The first "Black Friday" ads ran on 27 October — Alo Yoga's members' early access and Crime London's VIP access — two weeks before the window opens.
04Films vs ads
How much creative is behind the ads
Distinct films can only be counted for video we have downloaded and fingerprinted, and that coverage is very uneven between markets — so the films column is a floor, and only comparable where coverage is high.
| Market | Video ads | Video ads analysed | Distinct films identified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luxury | 284 | 76 (27%) | 42 |
| Performance / DTC | 1,022 | 329 (32%) | 216 |
| Outerwear | 137 | 95 (69%) | 53 |
| Sneakers | 264 | 45 (17%) | 22 |
Only outerwear is covered well enough to read: 95 analysed video ads are 53 films, each run 1.8 times. The largest gap is Valentino — 200 video ads in the window, none downloaded yet, and 133 of its 288 ads share one campaign's copy, which suggests a handful of films deployed many times.
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- 5,786 ads
- 30 brands
- 294 openings classified
- Methodology
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05Luxury
Luxury: the day does not exist
Gucci, Prada, Loewe, Jacquemus and Valentino launched 808 ads in November and December. Not one names Black Friday or uses discount wording. Four of the five ran between 0.69× and 1.33× their normal pace through the window.
Valentino's burst is an accessories campaign — mostly the DeVain bag reinterpreted by artists, plus holiday accessories — that lands in the window without referencing Black Friday. It is 36% of luxury's ads in November and December.
06Performance / DTC
Performance and DTC: Black Friday is the campaign
Alo Yoga, Skims, True Classic and Nike launched 3,199 ads. More than a third name Black Friday; 43% carry discount wording. This is the only market where the offer is the creative.
Nike is the exception inside its own market: 212 ads, none naming Black Friday, and 0.59× its normal pace in the window. Without True Classic the market's pace drops from 2.06× to 1.59×.
07Outerwear
Outerwear: faster, but quiet about why
Eight outerwear brands launched 584 ads. They ran at 1.65× their normal pace through the window — though the three weeks before it ran just as fast. The autumn launch season is the event; Black Friday sits inside it.
Covered in depth in our companion study, Black Friday 2025 · Premium Outerwear Italy.
08Sneakers
Sneakers: a split market
Thirteen sneaker brands launched 1,195 ads, at barely above their normal pace (1.09×). Underneath that average are two groups that behave like different markets.
Voile Blanche ran 29 ads for a "Black Week" sale; they count here as discount wording, not as naming Black Friday. Golden Goose ran at 0.41× its normal pace in the window; Autry at 1.32×.
09Hook Studio
How each market opens
We classify the first three seconds of every video we can download, and count films, not ads — a film run six times is one opening. Three markets have enough classified films to compare: performance (201 films), outerwear (52) and luxury (41).
Two caveats. Luxury's 41 films come from four houses — none of Valentino's video has been analysed yet. And sneakers is withheld: 22 films from 3 of its 13 brands is not a picture of the market.
10The promise
What the opening promises, by market
Share of classified films by the promise the opening makes. Films launched 1 November – 31 December 2025: luxury 41, performance 201, outerwear 52.
| Opening promise | Luxury | Performance / DTC | Outerwear |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spectacle, no promise | 71% | 9% | 65% |
| Brand intro (null hook) | 5% | 1.5% | 21% |
| Claim / promise | 2% | 30% | 0% |
| Offer-led | 0% | 28% | 4% |
| Mid-story drop | 12% | 10% | 4% |
| Anticipation / open loop | 5% | 8% | 6% |
| Question / direct address | 0% | 6% | 0% |
| Problem call-out | 5% | 5% | 0% |
| Social proof | 0% | 0.5% | 0% |
Luxury and outerwear open the same way — spectacle, no promise, on two films in three. Performance barely uses it (9%) and opens on a claim or an offer in 59% of films. Below 10 films, every luxury and outerwear row except spectacle and outerwear's brand intro is low-n.
11Performance / DTC
In performance, the offer travels
- Claim / promise · 30%
- Offer-led · 28%
- Mid-story drop · 10%
- Everything else · 32%
Claim / promise
30%Asserts a benefit, result or bold statement up front.
Offer-led
28%Price, discount, sale or promo is the opening move.
Mid-story drop
10%Starts mid-scene or mid-sentence; you deliberately missed the beginning.
In the one market that sells on price, opening on the offer indexes at 223 across 57 films — the offer is the hook, and at Black Friday it works. Tone splits three ways here too: aspirational 43%, informative 25%, humour 22% of 208 films — the only market in the study where humour is common, though it indexes low (15).
12What next
What this means if you are planning next year
The first question is not "what discount" but which market you are actually in — because the four behave so differently that a benchmark borrowed from the wrong one is worse than none.
If you sell like luxury, the category has agreed that Black Friday does not exist, and the three weeks run at normal pace. Silence is the norm, so it is not a differentiator; what you launch in the window is simply competing with a normal feed.
If you sell like performance and DTC, the offer is the creative and it has a five-day life. The open question there is not whether to discount, but whether a claim-led or offer-led opening carries your brand past the week.
Outerwear and sneakers are the interesting middle: most brands never name the day, a few name it loudly, and the rest time launches around it. That is where a deliberate position — early, late, or loud — is cheapest to take.
From the archive
See the work behind the numbers
Films these brands ran, from the Creative Data Room’s public archive. Open a brand to see everything we hold on it.
New for this momentTested 2× · 23s · 47 days
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New for this momentTested 2× · 20s · 47 days
New for this momentTested 4× · 10s · 47 days
New for this momentTested 4× · 31s · 47 days
New for this momentTested 2× · 30s · 25 days
New for this momentImage · 49 days
New for this momentImage · 1 day
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How this was built
Set: Gucci, Prada, Loewe, Jacquemus, Valentino, Alo Yoga, Skims, True Classic, Nike, Herno, K-Way, Colmar, Woolrich, Moncler, Save the Duck, Canada Goose, Napapijri, Autry, Golden Goose, P448, Philippe Model, MOA Concept, Premiata, Hogan, Crime London, Ghoud, Voile Blanche, Santoni, Candice Cooper, Stokton. Window: 1 November 2025 – 31 December 2025. Source: Meta Ad Library (EU).
Ads were collected from the public Meta Ad Library for the EU, scoped to 30 advertisers in Italy grouped into four markets. The report uses one window throughout: ads **launched** (delivery start) between 1 November and 31 December 2025. Every count, share and median in the report is taken over ads launched in that window.
Black Friday pace compares ads launched 10 November – 2 December (23 days, 6.3% of a year) with each market's launches from 1 September 2025 to 31 August 2026. Alo Yoga's collected history begins on 17 October 2025, so its year baseline is about six weeks short and its pace is somewhat overstated. The "first Black Friday ad" is the earliest ad launched from 1 September 2025 whose copy names the day.
Copy figures are estimates. "Says Black Friday" matches "Black Friday" in any spacing or case in the ad copy or link title — "Black Week" and "Cyber Monday" alone do not count. "Discount wording" matches percentages off, sconto/sconti, saldi, sale, promo, codice/code, offerta, deals and similar in Italian and English. On the cover, discount wording counts only ads that do not also name Black Friday.
Median days live runs from an ad's delivery start to its stop date, or to 29 September 2026 for ads still running.
The opening analysis counts distinct films (duplicate uploads merged), not ads. Reach index is the median launch-attributed EU reach of films opening a given way — each film's reach summed across its runs in the window — against the median for all classified films in that market (= 100). Cuts backed by fewer than 10 films are low-n. Sneakers is withheld (22 films from 3 of 13 brands); luxury excludes Valentino, whose video has not been analysed.
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