Black Friday is one of the loudest days on the internet, and attention is harder than ever to win. Brands compete for cultural relevance, not just sales.
This year our goals were simple and specific:
Insert Lowe’s into the center of Black Friday culture
Drive massive organic reach, engagement, and earned conversation
Create a physical, in-store experience designed for natural social storytelling
Prove that simplicity and cultural fluency can outperform high-production holiday campaigns
We anchored our work in behaviors already baked into Black Friday culture: lining up early, chasing value, and filming everything. The objective was to turn those behaviors into a social-first engine that made Lowe’s impossible to ignore.
Ultimately, the objective was not just awareness, but leadership, positioning Lowe’s as a breakout Black Friday brand by meeting culture where it already was and letting consumers do the storytelling for us.
To bring this idea to life, we introduced the Lowe’s Black Friday Bucket Giveaway. At every store, the first 50 MyLowe’s Rewards customers in line received a Lowe’s bucket filled with practical, branded products customers actually want and use. Inside one bucket per store was a “Golden Ticket” worth $2,000 toward any appliance. The odds were slim but the guaranteed value of the bucket made the wait worthwhile, even in cold, early-morning conditions.
The mechanic was intentionally simple. Just a physical moment designed to spark anticipation, suspense, and celebration. The exact ingredients people already capture on Black Friday.
On the social side, we supported the experience with clear promotion that gave customers that nostalgic excitement of early-2000s Black Friday energy. Pre-event teasers and countdowns gaveaudiences a simple reason to show up early.
On Black Friday morning, our team operated in real time. As customers lined up, the bucket became the moment. Organic comparisons to Target’s Black Friday bag, unboxings, Golden Ticket reveals, haul videos, and in-store celebrations flooded TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit, completely unprompted.
Our role shifted from creator to amplifier. We surfaced UGC, engaged with the community, and let the story spread naturally. East Coast content sparked West Coast FOMO, sending new waves of customers to Lowe’s stores as the morning unfolded.
The biggest challenge was restraint. In a category addicted to overproduction, we trusted a simple idea to do the work. That trust paid off. The bucket didn’t just perform, it became a cultural reference point, earning organic comparisons to competitors and positioning Lowe’s as the breakout Black Friday brand. The structure of the mechanic itself created a perfect UGC story arc: anticipation, reveal, payoff, without a single prompt.
The campaign generated the following results:
Estimated Organic Reach: 359M (+298% YoY)
Estimated Organic Engagement: 61.4M (+170,000% YoY).
Organic Mentions: 11,000 across (+450% YoY)
Earned Media Value: $7.4M, driven entirely by consumer storytelling.
The Lowe’s bucket became one of the most recognizable Black Friday moments online, with widespread organic comparisons and a clear shift in who owned the conversation.
More importantly, this proved that a simple, brand-authentic idea could outperform highly produced holiday campaigns. Customers weren’t just watching, they were participating, celebrating, and sharing real value in real time.
By meeting culture where it already was, Lowe’s didn’t chase attention. It earned it.
A simple idea.
The right moment.
And a bucket that took over Black Friday.
