Out­door retail­er REI’s announce­ment that it will remain closed on Black Fri­day could turn into a case study in hol­i­day mar­ket­ing. That’s because it is a bril­liant mar­ket­ing move cloaked with­in a nice ges­ture. So, in a way, every­one wins.

REI’s #OptOut­side clear­ly appeals to younger con­sumers who val­ue social good. While REI won’t make any mon­ey on Novem­ber 27, it still stands to make big gains before and after as a result.

The cam­paign itself is REI-spe­cif­ic in cer­tain respects. Oth­er brands should­n’t sim­ply copy REI to appeal to con­sumers’ good nature and/or make head­lines.

REI’s #OptOut­side also reflects aspects of U.S. cul­ture and con­sumer atti­tudes and behav­iors going into the 2015 hol­i­day sea­son.

Here’s what mar­keters can glean from REI’s anti-cam­paign.

1. Shrewdness Pays Off

#OptOut­side is a bold move that seems riski­er at first blush than it real­ly is.

The retail­er is shrewd­ly play­ing to its core audi­ence here, accord­ing to Rebec­ca Brooks, part­ner at Alter Agents. The brand not only came out a month ahead of Black Fri­day to get far ahead of the trend and look like a leader, but it has also launched an #OptOut­side microsite to fur­ther cap­i­tal­ize, she not­ed.

This isn’t a total­ly self­less act by REI. The brand like­ly won’t suf­fer as a result of its altru­ism.

In fact, accord­ing to David Water­man, senior direc­tor of earned media and SEO at The Search Agency, REI like­ly dis­cov­ered most of its hol­i­day sales were shift­ing to online sales after Black Fri­day any­way.

“I’m sure they make a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of their annu­al rev­enue on Black Fri­day, but their mar­ket­ing team prob­a­bly got a hold of this data and fig­ured that mak­ing a stand against Black Fri­day would pro­vide them with enough free pro­mo­tion to make up for any Black Fri­day sales they would have had,” he said.

Fur­ther, Ash­ley Orn­dorff, direc­tor of mar­ket­ing for Visu­al Impact Group, called this is a viral social cam­paign that has cat­a­pult­ed brand aware­ness to record heights.

“I would­n’t be sur­prised to see their online sales increase sub­stan­tial­ly this year due to their clos­ing retail stores and run­ning this cam­paign the way they have,” she said.

2. You Catch More Flies With Honey

Cam­paigns with an ele­ment of social good, such as #OptOut­side, could be the wave of the future.

Doing good results in good, which is good in and of itself, but also inspires con­sumer good will, which brands can cap­i­tal­ize upon lat­er.

3. Brands Must Fully Commit To Holiday Efforts

180LA Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer Stephen Larkin notes what’s even more spe­cial about #OptOut­side is the fact REI will be pay­ing its 12,000 employ­ees and will be clos­ing down its ecom­merce site that day as well.

“REI is not just half-wet, they went all-in,” he said.

4. Holiday Campaigns Can Pay Dividends All Year

Jan­ice Pol­lard, senior mar­ket­ing man­ag­er at Hel­loWorld, says #OptOut­side could even result in increased loy­al­ty among intense­ly loy­al Mil­len­ni­als who are attract­ed by an effort like this.

5. Memorable Campaigns Push The Envelope

It’s like­ly there will be many shame­less attempts to cap­i­tal­ize on #OptOut­side that end in fail­ure for brands that are try­ing to cash in on the oppor­tu­ni­ty, said Cody Sim­monds, strate­gist at Struck.

“That’s what sep­a­rates the Mil­len­ni­al from the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions: They are not swayed by impos­tors, but rather laugh and dis­miss such attempts,” he said.

Water­man agrees any oth­er brand that takes a stand against Black Fri­day this year won’t get the same lev­el of pro­mo­tion REI as they’ll mere­ly be seen as fol­low­ing REI’s lead.

6. Create Your Own Unique Holiday Blueprint

#OptOut­side works for REI because it fits with­in the brand ethos. But not all brands could, or should, pull this off.

“If Toys R Us or Wal­mart were to do this, con­sumers would call bull­shit on this and fast. In fact, it would hurt their brands,” Larkin said.

Fur­ther, Water­man says REI should have prob­a­bly nev­er par­tic­i­pat­ed in Black Fri­day in the first place.

“It goes against the ethos of their cus­tomer base,” he said. “So tak­ing a stand against Black Fri­day and push­ing an #OptOut­side move­ment is an easy win for a brand that pro­motes out­door liv­ing 365 days a year.”

7. Consumer Attitudes About The Holidays Are Shifting

#OptOut­side will gar­ner atten­tion because it taps into a cul­tur­al long­ing to reclaim deep­er human mean­ing dur­ing a sea­son that has been effec­tive­ly hol­lowed out by ram­pant con­sumerism, says Sarah Rubin­stein, senior strate­gist at Havas World­wide.

“Oth­er brands sense this oppor­tu­ni­ty,” she adds. “Espous­ing com­mu­nion over con­sump­tion is a great way to build rel­e­vance with a cul­ture that is fatigued by hol­i­day shop­ping hype and news­casts of Black Fri­day vio­lence.”

John Sis­son, pres­i­dent of Wilde Agency, goes as far as call­ing it “mar­ket­ing gold”: “It’s the sto­ry of how a com­pa­ny treats its employ­ees. It’s a sto­ry of car­ing. It’s the sto­ry of putting oth­ers before your­self,” he says.

Orn­dorff agrees REI has made a move that tells its cus­tomers it sup­ports and respects fam­i­ly, which “makes [the] brand human and relat­able and sends a mes­sage that [it cares] about its employ­ees and cus­tomers.”

8. Brands Must Make More Meaningful Connections

Julie Lyons, pres­i­dent and COO of Zen­zi, says #OptOut­side goes deep­er than sim­ply con­nect­ing with Mil­len­ni­als, Gen­er­a­tion Z, or any spe­cif­ic demo­graph­ic, to reach­ing con­sumers on a sub­con­scious lev­el.

“Tar­get­ing demo­graph­ics is no longer enough. As a result, many brands are real­iz­ing the impor­tance of psy­cho­graph­ics to con­nect with cus­tomers on a deep­er lev­el,” she said. “Backed by decades of proven psy­cho­log­i­cal research from renowned psy­chol­o­gist Shalom Schwartz, val­ues are the one con­stant about human beings that rarely change. They are the forces that moti­vate us and the way we pri­or­i­tize them speaks to the heart of our iden­ti­ty: where we work, what we buy, what we say.”

Lyons says #OptOut­side is one of a grow­ing num­ber of exam­ples of brands like Toy­ota, Expe­dia, Jaguar and Har­ry Win­ston, which she says are look­ing to con­nect with con­sumers with these shared val­ues.

9. Listen To Consumers & Nurture Relationships

REI made a move that many oth­ers should have made already – and it was pred­i­cat­ed on one sim­ple con­cept: under­stand­ing what social media is all about, said Kyle Reyes, pres­i­dent and cre­ative direc­tor of The Silent Part­ner Mar­ket­ing.

“For the past cou­ple of years, a grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple have been latch­ing onto social media trends call­ing for busi­ness­es to be closed on Black Fri­day. And yet in the pur­suit of the almighty dol­lar, busi­ness­es have wide­ly ignored this,” Reyes said.

The real ques­tion now, he added, is whether busi­ness­es will become open and recep­tive to feed­back from con­sumers based on what’s trend­ing on social media.

“Small busi­ness­es to large cor­po­ra­tions have large­ly failed at social media. Why? They use it to do noth­ing more than sell and to talk to cus­tomers, as opposed to engag­ing and hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions with them,” he said. “Social media isn’t about sell­ing, and busi­ness­es need to stop demand­ing a cal­cu­la­tion of the ROI of mar­ket­ing on social media. If the goal is con­ver­sions, they should lever­age Face­book Dark Posts. If the goal is cre­at­ing brand ambas­sadors, they need to do a much bet­ter job of nur­tur­ing rela­tion­ships with social.”

What do you think is the most valu­able hol­i­day mar­ket­ing les­son here?