The biggest retail day of the Canadian year is played out with content already shot. What to film in November so as not to improvise on 26 December.
What that changes in the message
Four switches compared with the preceding weeks.
We no longer talk about gifts but about personal use.
We no longer talk about delivery before a date, a constraint that disappears.
We talk about value and durability, not emotion.
And we address somebody who has already spent, therefore attentive to the real price.
What sells on that day
Five product families that dominate.
Home equipment, particularly what improves an interior where four months will be spent.
Electronics and accessories, bought with the gift cards received.
Sport and winter gear, at the moment the season really begins.
Storage and organisation, carried by the end of the year.
And replacement: what gave way over the holidays.
One selection consequence: the list of products put forward is limited to those whose stock lasts into January, a constraint that decides more than marketing interest.
The production calendar
Five steps, with the real dates.
November: writing and approval, while the creators are still available.
End of November: shooting, neutral setting, disclosures and prices left blank.
Early December: editing and language versions.
Mid-December: adding the final figures and final approval.
And the 26th: publication, with no production under way.
One common-sense note: nobody shoots between 20 and 25 December. The creators are unavailable, deliveries are saturated and approvals do not arrive.
What to prepare in advance
Four pieces of content, all shot in November.
The main video, centred on personal use.
The short version, for paid advertising.
The video answering questions, published on the morning of the 27th.
And the out-of-stock video, calmly announcing that an item is sold out and offering another.
That last one is the most profitable of the four, and it is the one nobody plans.
The two languages and the provinces
Four points to handle before the shoot.
The French version is not a translation: it is shot, with somebody whose language it is.
The display and advertising rules applying in Quebec, notably regarding language, are checked with a lawyer.
Displayed prices and taxes differ by province, which rules out a single figure on screen with no qualifier.
And delivery times vary greatly between the large cities and the remote regions.
The timetable of a year-end operation
| Stage | What you produce | When |
|---|---|---|
| Brief and shipping | Products at the creators' | Six weeks before |
| The shoot | Videos with no price, no date | Four weeks before |
| The overlay | Price and disclosure, added in the edit | Launch week |
What saturates at the last minute
Carriers, creators already booked, and internal approval delays. An operation launched three weeks out is paid for in quality, not savings.
What is prepared for the day after
An end-of-operation video and a restock video. Both are shot on the same day as the rest and serve when everyone is swamped.
What to keep for afterwards
Three uses of the rushes after the day.
The demonstrations with no price mention, reusable all winter.
The indoor use shots, useful until March.
And the unpublished variants, feeding the January tests, a period when producing is expensive and nobody has a budget.
One last marker: 26 December is not won on 26 December. It is won on 20 November, when you decide to shoot with no decoration and to keep one video in reserve for the item that will be sold out by midday.
