After thinking about it a bit, the Black Friday shopping story wasn't just shopping, it's publicity. Please read this I hope in the spirit of skepticism, not cynicism:
After so much coverage of the day after the US's Thanksgiving (day. it was dark four am), it sank in that maybe the footage trumped the prices. Public corporations have a fiduciary responsibilty to their stock holders to increase their stock price. One way to help meet numbers is obviously to increase sales, but another way is to increase market share. You can, Experts Say, make sure that your company's name appears in front of the consumer as often as possible. One way to do that is have a publicity stunt where you send out press releases about the wild sales you're going to have, get those sales mentioned in the paper, have the cameras rolling.
Voila! All weekend long the Company name is in all forms of media.