Black Friday. The large sales “event”, which falls on November 27th this year, is largely heralded as the starter pistol for the Christmas shopping season in the US, with retailers offering massive reductions to launch the Xmas shopping season with a bang.

Firstly, to put in perspective how massive this day is in American retail, a colossal $1.9 billion was spent in online sales alone last year, which was up 18 percent from 2012. In terms of m-commerce, mobile sales made up 21.6% of the sales that were made online! The sales numbers are subsequently smashed each year, so the number of sales via mobile or tablet are (again) set to see an increase come the 27th.

Mobile devices are also an essential tool in the marketing of the day, with retailers successfully “engaging” with shoppers via smartphones during Thanksgiving and Black Friday (as well as a month before for the build-up), sending 37% more push notifications in comparison to the average number of daily notifications sent out. Furthermore, the number of retail app installations also increased by 23%. Therefore, due to the smartphone-related marketing being carried out by retailers, it makes perfect sense that the mobile e-commerce market is thriving and will continue to grow with each passing year!

What does this mean for the UK? Well, as previously mentioned, Black Friday has traditionally been an American initiative, but this has now broken through to the UK market via the power and influence of US powerhouses Amazon and Apple. Therefore UK-based retailers have now seen the opportunity to make money from an additional “sales day” just before Christmas, discounting products…and seeing a sharp increase in profits in the process.

And following on from Black Friday, we of course have “Cyber Monday” for bargain-hunters searching for additional bargains. This follow-up event was created by marketers in 2005 in an attempt to turn the public onto shopping online. 9 years ago it could be said that online shopping was still in its infancy, but now the event in the online shopping calendar – so this clever marketing event has been a tremendous success, offering yet another avenue for m-commerce to thrive.

In conclusion, Black Friday 2015 (and Cyber Monday) are going to be providing us with some very exciting statistics this year. But most importantly, are YOU ready to pick yourself up a bargain? On your marks…get set….GO!

Two out of five brands and agencies (40%) admit that they’ve inadvertently published an incorrect piece of creative – anything from a typo in the copy to the wrong branding. In addition, one in six (17%) confess that unnecessary duplication of work happens frequently.

When it comes to creative approvals, only 17% of organisations have a dedicated software system to manage feedback and version control. The rest apparently rely either on multiple separate systems such as spreadsheets and cloud storage or on email trails.

In fact, one in nine marketing managers and agencies (11%) choose to rely solely on face to face approvals with no written or digital confirmation at all.

The survey also found that Email and Microsoft Excel are the two main software systems used by marketing teams and agencies to manage projects, and that less than half (44%) use dedicated project management tools. However, eight out of ten respondents (79%) think it would save them both time and frustration if they were able to go to just one place to get their work done.

The lack of effective project and process management is causing problems for brands and agencies alike. A third of marketers (33%) admit that they lack standardised processes, while more than a third (34%) feel that work requests are not handled well in their organisation.

On top of which, almost three-quarters of brands and agencies (72%) don’t have one place, such as a dedicated online environment, where they and their partners can collaborate to ensure their work is properly aligned and integrated.

Fergus Ashe, VP client solutions at Screendragon, said: “This research shows that marketing teams and agencies still using working practices from the past century to manage their projects and processes.

“While their specialist project management counterparts have eagerly adopted dedicated software tools, it seems marketing teams continue to rely on email trails, spreadsheets and corporate intranets to share knowledge and control how their work is progressing. And the amount of duplicated work and error-strewn creative out there shows that it’s just not doing the job.

“Agencies and marketing managers willing to adopt more sophisticated methods of working are much better placed to handle the challenges and opportunities of the constantly changing digital world.”