Lapse Productions ranks the best Black Friday video ads by published performance data, not by view counts. The short version: the measured winners of the 2025 season turned the deal itself into entertainment, while the classic anti-Black Friday campaigns from REI, IKEA and Decathlon Canada earned attention by not shouting about discounts at all. Black Friday 2026 lands on Friday, November 27, so most of this year’s creative is not out yet. This roundup covers what has launched so far for 2026, the strongest verified spots from Black Friday 2025, and the classics still worth studying, each with a lesson you can apply to a mid-market budget.
The short answer
- Wayfair’s Black Friday Caroling was the only Black Friday spot in MarketCast’s top five on Thanksgiving Day 2025, scoring 6 percent above the NFL ad norm.
- In System1’s 2025 festive testing, Best Buy’s doorbuster spot Freeze scored 5.1 Stars and Walmart’s WhoKnewVille, which carried its Black Friday events, scored 4.4 Stars.
- REI #OptOutside is still the benchmark for anti-Black Friday creative: it won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2016 and REI closed its stores again in 2025.
- The stakes: US shoppers spent a record 11.8 billion US dollars online on Black Friday 2025 (Adobe), and 84 percent of Canadians in the RCC and Leger survey call it their most important shopping day.
- The main 2026 entry so far is Walmart’s A Who Knew Carol. We will add the measured 2026 winners after November 27.
Why Do Black Friday Video Ads Matter in 2026?
Black Friday is now the centre of a five-day buying window, and the money is concentrated. According to Adobe Analytics, US consumers spent a record 11.8 billion US dollars online on Black Friday 2025, up 9.1 percent year over year. The full Cyber Week, from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, reached 44.2 billion US dollars, and Cyber Monday alone hit 14.25 billion US dollars.
Canadian shoppers treat the day just as seriously. In the Retail Council of Canada and Leger 2025 Holiday Shopping Survey of 2,505 Canadians, 84 percent said Black Friday is their most important shopping day, more than half begin researching 1 to 3 weeks in advance, and 80 percent compare prices online. That research window is where your video does its work: the ad has to be found, remembered and trusted before the sale starts, not just on the day.
Black Friday Video Ads Ranked at a Glance
Here is the full ranking. Ads from the 2025 season are ranked on published effectiveness data first. The classics are ranked on documented results and awards. Walmart’s 2026 campaign is listed for reference but stays unranked until measured data is published.
| Rank | Ad | Brand | Agency | Season | Evidence | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday Caroling: Up to 80% Off | Wayfair | Havas Chicago | 2025 | 6 percent above the NFL ad norm (MarketCast) | The discount becomes a song, so the offer is the entertainment |
| 2 | Freeze | Best Buy | Publicis | 2025 | 5.1 Stars (System1) | A doorbuster spot made with the same craft as the brand spots |
| 3 | WhoKnewVille | Walmart | Fallon, Leo New York, The Community, Contender, Digitas | 2025 | 4.4 Stars (System1) | One seasonal world carries three separate sale events |
| 4 | #OptOutside | REI | Venables Bell and Partners | 2015 to 2025 | Titanium Grand Prix, Cannes Lions 2016 | The decision to close is the message |
| 5 | #BuyBackFriday | IKEA | Edelman | 2020 | Ran in 27 countries (Ingka Group) | Flips the Black Friday transaction in the customer’s favour |
| 6 | Make Time for Sports | Decathlon Canada | Rethink | 2024 | No results published | A low-cost participation mechanic behind a clear stand |
| Watch | A Who Knew Carol | Walmart | Fallon, Leo New York, The Community | 2026 | Not yet measured | Black Friday as one chapter of a season-long story |
Different sources measure different things. MarketCast measured how well ads broke through in market during the Thanksgiving Day NFL broadcasts. System1 scores ads from 1.0 to 5.9 Stars on their brand-building potential, based on viewers’ emotional response. Read the evidence column as a guide, not a single scoreboard.
Which 2026 Black Friday Ads Are Out So Far?
As of November 1, 2026, most retailers have not released their Black Friday creative. The clearest early entry is Walmart’s holiday campaign, which builds its Black Friday message into a larger seasonal story. Best Buy also announced its 2026 holiday campaign, Open More, on October 29, and we will add its Black Friday work if it tests well. This section gets a full update the week after Black Friday.
2026 season · Unranked until measured
Walmart, A Who Knew Carol
What it does. Walmart recast The Muppet Christmas Carol with Walton Goggins as Ebenezer Scrooge, Stephanie Beatriz as his niece, and Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo and Rizzo around them. One of the three ghosts sells the Black Friday and Cyber Monday savings, and another sells last-minute gifting with Express Delivery in 30 minutes or less. Walmart’s 2026 sale windows are already set: Early Black Friday Deals from November 12 to 15, Black Friday Deals from November 23 to 29, and Cyber Monday from November 30 to December 2.
The lesson for a mid-market brand. Treat Black Friday as a chapter, not a separate campaign. Walmart’s CMO told Marketing Dive that one campaign across the season gives customers a quick read that it is Walmart. You can do the same at a smaller scale: one idea, shot once, with separate scenes for your early offer, your Black Friday deal and your last-minute message.
Which Black Friday Ads Won the 2025 Season?
Two published datasets cover Black Friday creative from 2025. MarketCast measured in-market breakthrough for the ads that aired during the Thanksgiving Day NFL games (roughly 141 million viewers), the day before Black Friday. System1 tested more than a hundred holiday ads for its Festive Ad Tracker 2025. We rank in-market measurement first, then System1 scores.
Rank 1 · 2025 season · Measured in market
1. Wayfair, Black Friday Caroling: Up to 80% Off
Wayfair has not posted this spot on its YouTube channel, so we link to it instead of embedding a copy. Watch Wayfair’s Black Friday Caroling on iSpot.tv.
What it does. Carollers dressed in purple arrive at a home with a Wayfair box and sing festive remixes about the Black Friday savings, while the homeowners pull out their phones and start ordering decorations. It ranked third of all ads on Thanksgiving Day 2025, behind Bud Light and Verizon, and was the only Black Friday spot in the top five.
The lesson for a mid-market brand. If the message has to be the discount, give the discount a performance. A jingle, a recurring character or a single visual gag costs little more to shoot than a price card, and it gives viewers a reason to remember the offer and the brand together.
Rank 2 · 2025 season · Pre-tested by System1
2. Best Buy, Freeze
Best Buy has not posted this spot on its own YouTube channel. Watch Best Buy’s Freeze on System1 Group’s YouTube channel.
What it does. Freeze is the doorbuster spot in Best Buy’s three-part 2025 holiday series, alongside Cookie and Cozy. The series ran across connected TV, social, YouTube and 30 NFL games, including Thanksgiving. In System1’s testing, Freeze scored 5.1 Stars, close to the brand-led spots in the same series (Cookie at 5.5 and Cozy at 5.2).
The lesson for a mid-market brand. A deals message does not have to drag a campaign down. Shoot the offer spot with the same characters, look and craft as your brand spots, and it can score close to them. In practice, that means scripting the promo cut on the same shoot day as the brand film, not adding it as an afterthought.
Rank 3 · 2025 season · Pre-tested by System1
3. Walmart, WhoKnewVille
What it does. Launched on October 27, 2025 with Dr. Seuss Enterprises, WhoKnewVille built a Seuss-inspired world around a green, mischievous holiday character. Walmart used that one world to carry three deals events: Early Black Friday from November 14 to 16, Black Friday from November 25 to 30, and Cyber Monday on December 1, each with early access for Walmart+ members.
The lesson for a mid-market brand. Give your sale windows a container. When every event ad lives in the same world, each new spot starts out recognizable instead of competing with the last one. For a smaller brand, the container can be as simple as one set, one presenter and one colour palette used across every cutdown.
Which Classic Black Friday Campaigns Still Hold Up?
The campaigns people still talk about years later mostly pushed against Black Friday instead of joining the noise. They are ranked here on documented results.
Rank 4 · Classic · 2015 to 2025
4. REI, #OptOutside
What it does. In 2015, REI closed its stores on Black Friday, paid its employees to take the day off and invited everyone to spend the day outside instead. REI reports that more than 1.4 million people and 170 organizations chose to opt outside in the first year. It has kept the closure every year since: in 2025, all 195 stores closed and 14,000 employees got a paid day outdoors.
The lesson for a mid-market brand. The decision is the ad. You cannot close 195 stores, but you can make one visible choice that costs you something (closing early so your team gets the day, or giving the day’s margin to a local cause) and film the real story of it. The video then explains a decision instead of making a claim.
Rank 5 · Classic · 2020
5. IKEA, #BuyBackFriday
What it does. From November 24 to December 3, 2020, IKEA offered to buy back customers’ unwanted IKEA furniture for resale. Depending on condition, sellers got a voucher worth up to 50 percent of the original price, and items that could not be resold were recycled or donated to community projects.
The lesson for a mid-market brand. Flip the transaction. Offer something on Black Friday that only your business can offer, such as a trade-in, a free repair or an extended service, and the video explains itself in one line. A clear mechanic is easier to film and easier to share than a list of discounts.
Rank 6 · Classic · 2024 · Canada
6. Decathlon Canada, Make Time for Sports
What it does. On Black Friday 2024, Decathlon Canada asked Canadians to skip shopping and book a sports activity instead, by sending a calendar invitation to a dedicated Decathlon address. Participants registered on a website, selected participants received a sports item, and the creative took over sports spaces such as a tennis court and a swimming pool across owned social and digital out-of-home.
The lesson for a mid-market brand. A Canadian retailer took an anti-shopping position that matched its everyday message on fair pricing, and the mechanic (a calendar invite) cost almost nothing. You do not need a national media buy to take a stand: you need one simple action people can take, and a short film that shows it.
What Makes a Black Friday Video Ad Work?
Across the measured winners and the classics, four patterns repeat.
- Give the deal a vehicle. Wayfair sold up to 80 percent off through a song. A creative device is what makes a price stick in memory.
- Build one world for the whole season. Walmart’s WhoKnewVille and its 2026 carol carry early deals, Black Friday and Cyber Monday inside a single idea, so each new spot starts recognizable.
- Write for the context. EDO found that retail ads in the 2023 Thanksgiving and Black Friday NFL games drove 29 percent more engagement than the retail primetime average. Ads made for game day, family time and the shopping weekend outperform generic spots.
- Only take a stand you can show. REI and IKEA backed their positions with real actions. Without the action, an anti-Black Friday message reads as a gimmick.
If you are new to the format, our explainer on what a promotional video is covers the basics, and our guide to the 9 types of corporate videos shows where a seasonal spot fits in a wider content plan.
How Should a Toronto Business Plan Its Black Friday Video?
Work back from your launch date, not from Black Friday itself. With Canadian shoppers researching 1 to 3 weeks ahead, a Black Friday campaign should be live by early November, which puts the booking deadline for a standard production in mid-September. Our holiday video campaign planning guide has the full calendar of booking deadlines for the season.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| 10 to 12 weeks out (mid-September) | Book production. Lock the offer, the concept and the list of deliverables. |
| 6 to 8 weeks out (early October) | Shoot day. Capture the hero spot, the vertical cutdowns and stills in one session. |
| 4 weeks out (end of October) | Final cuts approved, captions added, every aspect ratio exported. |
| 3 weeks out (early November) | Launch teasers and early-access offers to meet the research window. |
| Black Friday week | Run urgency cutdowns and retargeting ads with the deal and the date. |
| Cyber Monday to Boxing Day | Extend the campaign with fresh edits from the same footage. |
One shoot should feed every format:
- Hero spot (16:9, 30 or 60 seconds) for YouTube, connected TV and your website.
- Vertical cuts (9:16, under 15 seconds, captioned) for Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Adobe reports social’s share of Cyber Monday 2025 online revenue rose to 3.6 percent, up 56.5 percent year over year.
- Bumpers (6 seconds) with just the offer and the date, for paid placements and retargeting.
- Stills from the same set for email, display ads and your product pages.
Reading this in November 2026 with nothing shot yet? The campaign is not lost. A social-first video or an edit of footage you already have can turn around in 1 to 2 weeks, and next-day delivery is available as a $350 add-on. Then put Black Friday 2027 (Friday, November 26) on the calendar now. A promotional video production in Toronto planned for mid-September 2027 gives you the full timeline above.
Planning the whole fall run? Our Thanksgiving video ads roundup covers the spots that aired the day before Black Friday.
Plan Your Black Friday Video Campaign
Tell us the offer and the launch date. Dario and Kyrill will build the shoot, the cutdown plan and the schedule around it, whether that is a fast edit for this November or a full campaign for Black Friday 2027.
Get a Free QuoteFrequently Asked Questions
What were the best Black Friday ads of 2025?
Wayfair’s Black Friday Caroling was the strongest measured Black Friday spot of 2025, scoring 6 percent above the NFL ad norm on Thanksgiving Day in MarketCast’s tracking. In System1’s festive testing, Best Buy’s doorbuster spot Freeze scored 5.1 Stars and Walmart’s WhoKnewVille scored 4.4 Stars. All three gave the deal a memorable creative vehicle.
When should I start planning a Black Friday video campaign?
Book production by mid-September and launch by early November. A standard corporate video takes 4 to 6 weeks to produce, and more than half of Canadian shoppers start researching Black Friday purchases 1 to 3 weeks ahead. In 2026, Black Friday falls on Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday on November 30.
How much does a Black Friday video ad cost?
Every Lapse Productions project is custom quoted from an itemized rate card, with no fixed packages. A full filming day (10 hours) is $1,500, project management is 10 percent of the project total, and next-day delivery is a $350 add-on, all in CAD with HST not included. Cutdowns and formats are scoped into your quote.
Do anti-Black Friday campaigns work?
They can, when the stand is real and costs the brand something. REI has closed its stores on Black Friday since 2015 and won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2016, and IKEA’s Buy Back Friday paid customers in vouchers for their used furniture. A protest message without a matching action reads as a gimmick.
What video formats should a Black Friday campaign include?
Plan one shoot that delivers a 16:9 hero spot for YouTube, connected TV and your website, captioned 9:16 vertical cuts under 15 seconds for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, and short offer-and-date bumpers for paid placements. Social’s share of Cyber Monday 2025 online revenue rose 56.5 percent year over year, according to Adobe.
About the author
Dario Nouri is a Producer and Co-Founder of Lapse Productions, a Toronto video production company creating results-based content since 2014. He also hosts Creatives Grab Coffee, a podcast on the business of video production.
Sources: MarketCast, The Ads That Scored Big on Thanksgiving Day (December 2025); System1, Festive Ad Tracker 2025; Adobe, Cyber Monday 2025 online spending release (December 2, 2025); Retail Council of Canada and Leger, 2025 Holiday Shopping Survey release (November 21, 2025); EDO, retail ads during Thanksgiving and Black Friday NFL games (December 2023); Marketing Dive on Walmart (October 29, 2025 and October 26, 2026) and Best Buy (November 3, 2025); Adweek on Best Buy Open More (October 29, 2026); Ads of the World, A Who Knew Carol and WhoKnewVille; Cord Cutters News, Walmart 2026 holiday events (October 28, 2026); iSpot.tv, Wayfair Black Friday Caroling; Visie, Wayfair carollers credits; REI Newsroom (October 30, 2025) and REI Co-op Journal; Campaign, Cannes Lions 2016; Ingka Group Newsroom (October 13, 2020); LBB Online (October 14, 2020 and November 25, 2024). All accessed November 2026.