Do brands lie?

Of course they do!

But you may be surprised how many brands used a deceptive and false email marketing tactic this past Black Friday weekend—and customers started to catch on.

We’re not talking about emails with “Surprise, we extended our sale!” messaging. Consumers expect these after years of seeing that exact subject line 100 times in their inboxes, but they don’t expect companies to lie as a tactic to promote an ongoing sale so blatantly.

What many consumers received were emails with something like the following?

“Due to high demand (and steep Black Friday discounts), our site crashed momentarily. It’s back up, though, and you can shop up to 60% off everything!”