I typically feature ‘in-the-wild’s’ later in the week, but this one was just too timely.

Over the weekend, I stumbled on marketing analytics expert Phillip Law’s crisp visual takedown of Black Friday coverage.

It doesn’t take too long to see Phillip’s point:

Typical news headlines, or more concerning, corporate results announcements, tend to tout top-line sales in and around Black Friday…

...but they fail to take into account the dip before and after these much anticipated sales periods that may soften or even negate the positive spin of the week’s results.

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What I love about Phillip’s 'intellectual headshot':

• It’s rough — no need to get fancy, the hand-drawn aesthetic actually draws you in. In the accompanying post, he even proactively apologizes for the ‘serial killer handwriting’ 😂
• It’s instant — you get it almost immediately, even though there are several layers involved (the sales period, the before/after dips, the analyst slant, the true full picture)
• It’s replicable — once you ‘get it’, you could likely redraw it from memory an hour from now; this is a core test of whether you’ve distilled an idea down to maximum shareability
• It’s sticky — whenever you read a headline about Black Friday results, this year or any year to come, you’ll most likely remember this visual and think twice

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My only note: Visuals this good tend to travel on their own, and he didn’t wordmark this one with his name.

So I did it for him :)

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💡

-Wes