Dacia went dark for Black Friday

Black Friday?

Feh.

That pretty much sums up the attitude about the hyped-up “holiday” from the marketing folks at Dacia, the Renault-owned budget brand sold in the UK.

To anti-celebrate the shopping chaos for a day, Dacia last Friday shut down its online sales site in Britain and its car configurator and posted this explainer, “because at Dacia we offer value all year round.” To emphasize the point, the note adds, “It’s no big deal!”

Overseas, Dacia sells budget branded vehicles such as the Sandero supermini and the Duster SUV.

“At Dacia, Black Friday is just a normal Friday,” said Luke Broad, Dacia’s director in the UK, as reported in CarScoops. “Shutting down our online sales for the day is a bold move but it does show our commitment to being the UK’s number one car manufacturer for value. This is a way to put our money where our mouth is.” The company has also placed radio ads that just play “relaxing” sounds so that consumers can “tune out of the Black Friday noise.”

The concept of Black Friday attracts a mixed reception in Britain, where Thanksgiving is usually only celebrated by expatriate Americans living there. In fact, the automaker said that research it commissioned indicated that 70 percent of Britons believed that Black Friday was a gimmick, even though more than half of those surveyed said that they still use it as an excuse to shop for Christmas gifts.

“Black Friday can easily lead consumers to overspend on products they don’t need – which isn’t what Dacia is about,” said Broad. He pointed out that retailers will often use tricks like raising the price of an item for a few weeks before they cut prices on Black Friday, or they’ll offer deals on items limited in stock to then upsell consumers to different products with a greater profit margin.