Top of the Pops: The Retail Advertising Stars of 2024
Which retail advertising campaigns impressed the most this year? We asked a selection of top retail marketers and retail experts to select their favourite campaigns from across traditional channels, social campaigns and retail media activations.
Ken Pilot, Founder, Pilot Ventures
The world is enjoying a footwear/sneaker moment. The giants of the industry, Nike, Adidas, Puma and New Balance are being challenged by younger and most innovative brands. I am selecting 2 footwear brands for the amazing marketing campaigns they have assembled this year: On Cloud Running for the athletes in us and Skechers for the leisure life we lead. Both brands leaned in heavily on celebrity endorsements and with the right celebrities and timing. On dropped a bombshell campaign, coinciding with the Summer Olympics, with Zendaya that recalled the great creativity of the Apple “introducing the McIntosh” Super Bowl ad of 1984. Dream On…Brilliant. And Skechers has embraced both Snoop Dog and Martha Stewart to appeal to customers across demographics looking for comfort. Thought this campaign began last year it remains relevant and impactful.
Both brands are about creating a movement and a community that people can relate to and enjoy.
Merel Werners, Founder Me-We Studio and former Head of Marketing, EMEA at Calvin Klein and Havaianas
“The Zara Streaming campaign really stood out for its seamless integration of live stream shopping, entertainment (loved the song they were singing) and star power of two generations. Featuring Cindy Crawford and daughter Kaia Gerber it combined authentic story telling with cutting edge technology.
Viewers were able to instantly purchase pieces as they watched the mother-daughter duo bring the collection to life, offering personal styling tips that made the experience more engaging and relatable.”
Matt Newell, Founder and CEO, The General Store
“We’re keeping it small this Christmas. Just bring a turkey... and maybe a gravy boat.” This simple line in Aldi Australia’s Christmas campaign kicks off an hilarious journey as an Aussie couple embrace the emotional challenge of being responsible for the turkey and a wild miss communication around what a gravy boat is. All the while hitting the sentimental notes of what a hot Australian Christmas is. The TV ad is the thin edge of the wedge on a much broader integrated campaign that celebrates how saving money at Aldi means you can ‘go a little extra this Christmas’, which is a powerful message in a tough economy. Great Aussie humour from a great German retailer….
Amitabh Taneja, Founder, Chairman and Editor in Chief, Images Group, India and Middle East
Being Human is a brand that offers fashionable jeans, shirts, and accessories for both men and women. It was founded in 2012 to further the objective of Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation, a charitable trust devoted to education and healthcare initiatives for the underserved population in India. The World Disability Day campaign was built around a silent video and poster campaign to gratify each specially-abled person across all their stores. This campaign also taught the layman the sign language to ease communication and acknowledged all their specially-abled staff via this video for all their contributions. -It set out to ease communication with the staff during shopping as well as day-to-day lives while communicating with a specially-abled.
The campaign achieved 1 million+ impressions on the video across social media in less than a week and a 2x spike in followers across social media. Shoppers started using the sign language to communicate with specially-abled staff in stores
The campaign reached 200,000+ people across social media and garnered 500+ shares organically.
Jeanswear retailer,JACK&JONES, teamed up with Bollywood’s famous actor Ranveer Singh in the highly effective DON’T HOLD BACK 3.0 campaign.
This was a 360 campaign across TV, Print, PR, Influencer marketing, Outdoor & Mall Branding, Social Media outreach, In-store event and CRM & website
Footfall grew by 236%, overall Impressions: 136.6 million, engagement: 31.85% and the AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) 55.64M
Dubai Duty Free is responsible for duty-free selling operations at Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Airport. At the end of 2023, DDF completed 40 years of being in business. The campaign told the story of Dubai Duty Free’s four decades and how it achieved record sales in its anniversary year.
The campaign aimed to reward customers, raise awareness of the brand's success story, recognise and acknowledge DDF's staff, suppliers, and partners.
DDF achieved record sales of US$2.16 billion, a 24.39% increase from the previous year. December sales for the brand reached US$221 million, marking an 8.37% increase compared to 2022. 25% discount on 20th December resulted in US$14.8 million in sales within 24 hours.
Deborah Dolce, SVP, Group Director, Marketing & Corporate Responsibility, TJX Group
I always consider Christmas as our equivalent of the Super Bowl from a marketing point of view. This year there has been an interesting trend to what has been dubbed ‘compound creativity” with many retailers reusing assets or building on existing campaigns. But one retail brand which has made a great impact with its new Christmas work is Boots. While it has provoked all sorted of outrage, I find the ad to be rooted in a real consumer truth that will speak to Boots’ primarily female audience, and at the same time, fun, festive and joyful.
In similar vein, a campaign that seemed to elicit a whole range of reactions was the Burger King ‘Bundles of Joy’ outdoor campaign. Regardless of the dietary merits of fast food, this campaign is rooted in real insight and shows beautifully shot, real images of mums who have just given birth, savouring their first meal. I love the photography, the intimacy of the moment captured, and the art direction. There is no brand promise or justification, just pure and compelling emotion which is bound to stay with the viewer.
Jessie Dowd, Editorial Director, Path to Purchase Institute
Unilever’s “Untold Beauty” campaign began in 2022 to increase representation of multicultural shoppers in the beauty and personal care (BPC) category at Walgreens. The omnichannel campaign featuring the Shea Moisture, Vaseline and Dove brands showcased multicultural imagery accompanied by beauty narratives that had gone unheard.
In 2023, Unilever saw an opportunity to expand Untold Beauty to a wider audience through Walgreens’ retailer media network, while featuring additional products and a strengthened purpose. In a change from its previous influencer strategy, Unilever and Walgreens formed a partnership with The Moth, a New York-based non-profit organization that works within local communities to share uplifting stories through live “Slam” events. The idea was to meet shoppers where they were — on the streets, in Walgreens parking lots and in stores.
Highlights of these conversations were featured during the Moth Radio podcast hour, which aired through in-store audio at Walgreens stores, and at Slam events in Chicago, New York and Miami. Images captured throughout the events were displayed across a series of digital out-of-home ads, while activation in the retail media network providing the greatest reach and impact. Stories that stopped the scroll on Walgreens social platforms informed but also inspired shoppers to click through to the brand page on Walgreens.com.
Untold Beauty exceeded expectations with a 6.36% conversion rate and $21.29 directional ROAS, doubling and tripling respective benchmarks. The partners note the ultimate success the meaningful impact of the program in the communities and lives of Walgreens shoppers.
Tong Van, Author at Inside Retail Asia
Butterbear
Butterbear’s mascot Nong Noey has skyrocketed the brand to fame, particularly on social media. The brand introduced a music video of Nong Noey, which has already drawn more than 15 million views on YouTube. The character has also appeared on national television and entertainment shows.
Nong Noey is no longer just a mascot but an idol with human characteristics. Initially gaining recognition from Chinese fans, the character now has a solid fan base within its home market and internationally, including Vietnam and the Philippines.
The story of Butterbear underscores the importance of capturing the emotional and cultural zeitgeist through creative storytelling. As brands look for ways to stand out, leveraging the power of beloved mascots can create a deep connection with audiences.
Gentle Monster x Jennie Kim
Jentle Salon is the third project imagined by the eyewear giant and global star Jennie, after Jentle Home and Jentle Garden.
On Weibo, the topic #JentleSalon brought in more than 2 million views in May. On WeChat, the promotional post for the GENTLE MONSTER Jennie collaboration became one of the account's most popular that month, garnering 46,700 views.
Heytea x Anta
Chinese tea chain Heytea partnered with Anta for a collaboration campaign in line with the Paris Olympic Games.
The name of the co-branded bottled drinks was unveiled following an online puzzle where users on social media were invited to guess the word between “Winner” (夺冠, lit. winning the championship) and “Bottle”. The winner part is because the co-branding is in fact with Anta Guanjun, the high-performance line from the sportswear brand. It was later revealed on 29 July as “纤体” (slimming) as the name is “Winner’s Slimming Bottle” (夺冠纤体瓶).
The topic “Heytea for gold sur-prize” (#金喜时刻喝喜茶#) amassed a whopping 130 million views and 80,000 engagements.