Welcome to Death of an Ad Man, where we celebrate the industry Stephen Leacock once described as “a judicious mixture of flattery and threats.”

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“Gentlemen, I’m pleased to report strong holiday sales from the Christmas-Hanu-Kwanzaa spend phase, and things look good for the Mom-Dad-Grad gift corridor. Then we’ll have the usual summer lull…”

“We need to cook up a new holiday for the summer. Something with gifts, cards, assorted gougeables. How about something religious?”

“I know! Spendover! Like Passover, but less talk, more presents.”

“Product Day?”

“It’s got to be warm and fuzzy- something like, um, Love Day but not so lame.”

While the above exchange may have been taken from The Simpsons episode “Trash of the Titans”, there’s a good chance that a very similar conversation took place in the not too distant past at Amazon HQ when they came up with the brilliant idea of Amazon Prime Day.

As Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, Good Friday, and Cyber Monday have taught us, nothing makes cash registers ring like the guilt-inducing stress of a fictional holiday. That’s why you have to hand it to Amazon for this one.

According to their press release, Amazon Prime Day (also known as July 15th), will be a one-day only event held exclusively for Amazon Prime Members that Amazon is promising will have “more deals than Black Friday”. New deals will start at midnight on July 15th, with additional deals popping up every 10 minutes. They’ll also be giving away prizes like gift cards worth up to $25,000 just for listening to any Prime Music song during that day.

Considering Black Friday brought in more than $1.5 billion in online sales last November, you can see why this is a smart move for the online retailer.

Especially when you learn that this is happening right as a similar company called Jet, currently in beta, is about to launch.# And especially when you learn that Amazon has already gone to price-war with Jet’s founder, Marc Lore, before when he started Diapers.com only to eventually get bought out by Amazon for $550 million.

If, somehow, you don’t have Amazon Prime though, Amazon still has you covered. They’re offering a FREE 30-DAY TRIAL! so that everyone can take part in the glorious annual American tradition of Love Day Amazon Prime Day.

Click the big image below to start your free trial of Amazon Prime:


Prime-Day

Happy Amazon Prime Day! Click here to get it