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Business interests for years have pushed manufactured holidays with a commercialist bent, whether it's “Small Business Saturday,” created by American Express in 2010 as the nation climbed out of a recession and now celebrated every Saturday after Thanksgiving, or “Cyber Monday,” which the National Retail Federation concocted in 2005 to spur post-Black Friday online shopping once everyone got back to work.
Now comes “Small Brewery Sunday,” which craft beer industry group Brewers Association is pushing for the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The group is encouraging drinkers to buy brands that day that sport the “independent craft brewer seal,” a label it invented in 2017 to signify that a brand “independently owned”—i.e., not controlled by MillerCoors, Anheuser Busch InBev or another large brewer. (Soon, craft icon New Belgium won’t qualify after it comes under the wing of Japanese brewing giant Kirin.)
If beer isn’t your thing, there is always “Green Wednesday,” the day before Thanksgiving that the cannabis industry has branded as the day to stock up on pot before the four-day weekend—because don’t we all need a little help dealing with the in-laws? Springbig, which provides digital marketing software to cannabis retailers, says that cannabis sales in California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington jumped 63 percent on Green Wednesday last year compared with the average of the previous four Wednesdays.
Of course all these fake holidays take their cues from Black Friday, the unofficial shopping holiday. But as we discuss on the latest edition of the Marketer’s Brief podcast, the actual day might be losing its relevance as “Black Friday” evolves into code for any sale taking place around Thanksgiving.