Black Friday is no longer a single day. For Philips, it is a month-long campaign that starts in the planning room before the summer and runs well into December. Every hour on the day itself counts, but most of the work that decides the outcome is done months earlier.
In our first Omnia Black Friday podcast, Edoardo Passerini, Pricing and Revenue Growth Manager D2C at Philips Personal Health, joined our consultants Rara and Fred to talk about how his team prepares, what a campaign day looks like, what went wrong in the past and what he would advise any pricing team heading into peak season. Edoardo has worked in finance and pricing at HP, Nike and now Philips, and he is a daily Omnia user across 14 countries.
This article summarizes the full conversation, including the questions from the audience, and turns it into practical lessons for pricing, e-commerce and marketing teams.
Prefer to watch? Here is the full webinar.
Edoardo started his career in finance, in financial planning and analysis at HP Inc. He then moved to the Netherlands and joined Nike, first in FP&A for e-commerce in EMEA and later in commercial finance, where he started to work on discounting and promotions. Two years ago he moved to Philips and joined the pricing and revenue growth management team for the personal health business.
That business covers the fast-moving consumer products of Philips: shavers, OneBlade, IPL devices and personal healthcare products. Edoardo focuses on the D2C channel, the Philips web shops, which his team runs in 14 countries. Since joining, he has been a very active Omnia user, and he was one of the first to get access to the Omnia agent.
Edoardo has seen Black Friday from several angles. In industrial printing at HP there was no Black Friday at all, only year-end deals with some incentives. At Nike, once the focus moved to e-commerce, Black Friday became more important, although in sports and fashion it still matters less than in electronics. At Philips, Q4 is by far the most important period of the year, and it is no longer only Black Friday but Black November.
He pointed out a few differences between fashion and electronics that shape how shoppers behave:
Preparation for Black Friday begins several months ahead of the event, often even before the summer. The first meetings cover three things: how the previous Black Friday went and what to do differently, which promo mechanics and phases to use, and when the campaign should run. At Philips this results in a campaign of roughly one month, split into three phases, starting at the beginning of November and running into December.
The work is not owned by pricing alone. Edoardo describes a triangle of pricing, marketing and supply. Together they build one full picture of the campaign and stay synchronized for the event itself. The commercial teams join early with the objectives of the season, and finance is involved to make sure the campaign still hits its margin target.
When asked about the biggest uncertainty, Edoardo did not hesitate: it is how early and how aggressive the market will be. Competitors may promote earlier and deeper, and the retailers that sell Philips products may do the same.
His answer is to prepare scenarios before the campaign starts. In his words, what you do not want is to improvise during the campaign and make the wrong call. The scenarios cover questions such as:
These scenarios need to be aligned with all stakeholders inside the company. Then the campaign is less stressful, because there is already a plan B, C and D to execute when something happens. Rara added that this is the same logic as a strategy tree in dynamic pricing: if this happens, then this is the price.
As systems get better, more decisions can be delegated. Edoardo's rule of thumb is that anything that recurs, such as the daily reporting during the promotion, should be automated as much as possible. What stays manual are decisions on specific products, on specific discounts, and on how much to invest in paid media. These carry a brand judgment, so the team discusses them internally before activating anything.
AI has already made life easier in several ways:
The Omnia agent is part of this. Philips operates in 14 countries, which used to mean 14 different portals to search when a product did not behave as expected. Now the team can simply ask the agent which decision tree a product ends up in or what is blocking it. The agent also flags products that are blocked by a certain boundary, which gives the team a starting point to decide whether that is intended or whether the dynamic pricing strategy should be adjusted. As Rara noted, the decisions remain with the team, but the agent sheds light on things there was no capacity to look into before.
Every day of the campaign starts with a review of the previous days: how is the business performing against its targets and against the expected year-on-year growth, and which categories do better than others? Edoardo then combines that with other views to understand why:
The metrics always link back to the objectives of the campaign. Some phases aim at engagement, getting more people to visit the website and get familiar with the technology, which ties in with CRM and the member base. Other phases focus on selling specific products.
Asked for a stressful moment, Edoardo described a Black Friday some years ago when the IT synchronization of the website was delayed, so products were not online yet while traffic was already high. The team solved it quickly, but the lesson was clear: when every minute counts, you cannot afford to lose sales to something that could have been prepared. Do as much as possible up front, and make sure you know who to contact when something breaks.
A viewer asked how Omnia fits into the Black Friday process. Edoardo explained that Omnia helps the team understand the landscape: what happens to the same Philips products at other retailers, how deep retailers go on Black Friday, and what competitors do with their own products. Reports in Omnia give a daily view of market price levels, so the team sees every day whether prices are changing.
From there, the team works in two modes:
Two more practical examples came up. During Black Friday, Philips adds an extra pricing run, especially for the top five or six of its 14 countries, because every hour counts and the market moves constantly. And the team recently set up a view in the portals that spots the products with a very good market position. That list goes to the paid media agency, which gives those products extra visibility, because shoppers who land on a well-priced product are more likely to convert.
An audience member asked whether there is a downside to many price changes in a short period. Edoardo said there is, and that it affects consumer perception. A shopper who buys at the beginning of the campaign and sees a lower price later will complain, so customer service needs to be informed and engaged in the process. On the other side, products can run out of stock during the event, so buying at the start also protects shoppers from missing out. That sense of being first should make consumers willing to pay a little more.
Not every product gets the same discount. Philips Personal Health has a global strategy with areas of the portfolio it wants to grow because that is where the largest share of demand is expected, and areas it wants to protect. Edoardo's team pays particular attention to phase-in and phase-out products:
Price is not the only lever. On the website, the team can use bundles and vouchers at checkout to become more competitive and more attractive without lowering the list price everywhere.
As a D2C channel, Philips also focuses more on the mid and high end of the range. Low-end products are typically searched for in physical stores, and from a profitability point of view it makes more sense to trade consumers up on the brand's own flagship website. Edoardo also stressed the omnichannel journey: a shopper may see a product in a store, look it up online to understand the technology, see an ad on social media, and finally decide after several touchpoints.
Philips sells through retailers as well as through its own web shops, so channel conflict is a real risk. Edoardo's answer is to define the role of each channel up front, as a company. Each channel focuses on certain areas of the portfolio, and the D2C shop, which represents the brand, should not be the lowest price in the market. It should be aligned with market levels but never undercut anyone else. If a brand does not trust its own offering, it pushes retailers to go lower too, and the whole market drops. Rara noted that this is hard for a D2C business that also needs to drive sales, but it protects the brand and the margin.
Asked what worked well in past years, Edoardo named the phases. As the promotion gets longer and longer, something needs to change in every phase to keep consumers engaged. In practice, every week new products are added, new content goes live, different audiences are targeted depending on the part of the portfolio in focus, and there is some gamification during the event. Rara observed that a discount at the start of the month would otherwise lose steam, which is exactly why phases make sense.
Another example is the sustainability theme in the Benelux, built around refurbished products, which was even visible on banners in central stations. People want to feel good about what they buy, and that message worked well.
Because Edoardo's team runs Black Friday in 14 countries, he sees big differences between markets. Portfolio and promotion are never simply copied from one country to the next.
|
Market |
What works |
|---|---|
|
UK |
The biggest discount claims, up to minus 60 or 70 percent, otherwise the conversion trigger may be missed |
|
Northern Europe |
Higher purchasing power, so bundling can be an option |
|
Southern Europe |
Good deals, as purchasing power is lower |
|
Netherlands |
Offers such as one plus one, a mechanic the hosts see as very Dutch |
|
Some markets |
A sustainability pillar resonates more |
Edoardo also noted that bundling works better in some countries than in others. His advice is to test and sense the audience in each market, because consumers react differently to the same promotion.
One of the most useful parts of the conversation was Edoardo's answer to what people outside pricing underestimate about Black Friday. Having the best price is not enough. You need the full package:
The link between pricing and marketing matters here as well. If marketing spends more on the key products where the price is competitive, those products drive more sell-out and bring incremental value. Edoardo said the team tries to master this link even more during events. It is also a moment to build trust: Black Friday brings a lot of traffic to the website, and that is the time to show the technology and the extra value a consumer gets from a Philips product. In personal health, where products are about improving your daily routine, showing the benefits matters as much as the price.
When asked what will be different this year, Edoardo pointed to AI. Consumers are becoming more expert about what they buy, because it is much easier to dive into an industry, compare all the brands that sell a product such as a power toothbrush, and find where to buy it. The goal for Philips is that its website content is picked up by AI, so that when someone asks which toothbrush to buy, Philips appears in the top three results. Rara and Fred shared that they use AI to shop themselves, by typing in a budget and asking for pros and cons of brands, and that it can raise awareness of products you did not know existed.
For Philips, this means three things:
Edoardo gave a personal view that sparked a good discussion. As a consumer, he feels Black Friday is losing some of its attractiveness. In the past you knew that only during Black Friday you could find the best deal of the year, and people queued in front of stores. Because of the macro-economic situation, brands now promote more and more often, so that peak moment is diluted. Rara suggested a more concentrated moment, such as a limited number of products at half price that creates excitement and traffic.
From a company perspective, Edoardo sees benefits in having more events during the year. Pressure is spread across more moments, the pricing architecture of many companies is already built for multiple promotions, and a quarterly event can keep consumers engaged all year. Retail moments can be linked to parts of the portfolio, such as Mother's Day and Father's Day for the mother and child care range, or Earth Day for refurbished products. He also expects single-day events such as 11.11 in China to arrive in Europe as more Chinese retailers enter the market, even though they are not yet a major moment for Philips.
To close, Edoardo gave advice for anyone in a similar position:
And as Rara pointed out, if you are reading this with only a month and a half to go, it is not too late to start preparing.
Several months ahead. At Philips, the first meetings take place before the summer and cover last year's results, the promo mechanics, the phases and the timing.
Pricing, marketing and supply form the core triangle. The commercial teams join early with the season objectives, and finance makes sure the campaign hits its margin target.
No. According to Edoardo, a D2C shop should be aligned with market levels and never undercut others. Otherwise retailers go lower too, and the whole market loses margin.
How early and how aggressively competitors and retailers will promote. The best preparation is a set of scenarios that are agreed with all stakeholders before the campaign starts.
Shoppers use AI to research and compare products, so brands need website content and reviews that LLMs can pick up. Internally, AI speeds up reporting, market scanning and asset creation.
Want to hear the full story, including the Q&A with the audience? Watch the full webinar on YouTube. And if you want help preparing your own Black Friday pricing setup in Omnia, reach out to your customer success manager or contact our team.