"Black Friday sales offer few real discounts, says Which?"
"don't fall for the pressure tactics around Black Friday." it says, yet today they are promoting tweets about Black Friday Deals.
1. They deem something not a "real deal" if it was the same price within 6 mths before/after Black Friday.
2. They only looked at 83 products.
3. It doesn't seem to take into account email only discount codes, etc, that are common on Black Friday.
5. Products that stay online for a full 12 months are less likely to be seasonal things that get big 'end of life' deals around Black Friday.
etc.
A reason they do that is: "Which?" make money from Black Friday. They are actually a Black Friday competitor of the retailers they criticise.
Here's what 'digidip' do (image 2).
Ie, many of these links are 'affiliate' links - Which get paid by those retailers if you click through them & buy.
Which are consciously trying to rank for phrases like "Black Friday Deals", "Black Friday Deals Currys", "Black Friday Deals Amazon".
At the same time they sew seeds of doubt whether those retailers offer "real deals", & positioning themselves as arbiters.
1. Which are criticising retailers over Black Friday.
2. Which themselves gain revenue from Black Friday.
3. Which deliberately aim to rank in search engines for Black Friday related terms.
4. News articles criticising retailers are one part of that.