Always in Fashion: How OOH Plays Starring Role in eBay's Global Brand Campaign
December 12, 2024
Do you want to know the secret weapon of Hollywood’s top costume designers?
It’s eBay.
“We literally dressed thousands of extras piece by piece and completed an enormous puzzle,” said Dayna Pink, costumer for Lovecraft Country. “eBay boxes at our office stacked to the ceiling.
In fact, TV shows and movies of all kinds often feature fashions plucked from the online auction marketplace. Part of why eBay has remained an under-the-radar resource for those in the know is because unlike niche competitors that specialize in second-hand couture, eBay hasn’t traditionally been thought of as a fashion destination. But the brand wanted to change that.
Enter its first global brand campaign in a decade. Titled “Things.People.Love,” its creative strategy was to inform consumers that eBay is where you go for the unique, the special, the vintage – items not found in your local mall.
Schitt’s Creek creator and star Dan Levy gets it.
“I never wanted it to feel like we threw a strand of Zara pearls around Moira’s neck but expected you to believe that she came from millions and millions of dollars,” he explained. “The challenge there was we had no budget.”
“It was essentially 365 days of trawling through eBay...to make sure that we got real pieces that spoke to who these people were,” Dan continued. “Finding these pieces for cheap was one of the great challenges of the show.”
eBay’s goal was to get fashion lovers on Dan’s wavelength. Running in the heart of New York City during Fashion Week, the digital out of home campaign reached its stylish audience via our subway station Liveboards and in-car Livecard MAX formats, as well as aboveground on our OUTFRONT PRIME Penn Digital Spectacular.
The campaign even included “Endless Runway,” a series of real-life pre-loved fashion catwalk shows in London and New York, livestreamed to the whole world!!
By bringing its couture offerings to our canvases, eBay joins a who’s who of A-list luxury brands and fashion houses embracing out of home – including legendary names like Chanel, Rolex, and Gucci. How successful was this campaign in elevating the brand into that rarefied air?
To determine its impact, we enlisted the help of our third-party measurement partner MFour. Its brand lift attribution study measured a stunning 60-point lift in unaided awareness among those exposed to the ads. That increase actually pushed eBay ahead of its competitive set of online fashion marketplaces.
The ads proved to be extremely memorable, with a 59% ad recall rate outpacing MFour’s benchmark by 1.5x. Nearly four out of five of those who recognized the ads specifically remembered seeing them on Liveboards.
Of course, awareness and recall are means to an end. Where the rubber really meets the road is in terms of impacting brand metrics, and this campaign delivered. Those who recognized the ads saw lifts of 14% in brand affinity, 11% in consideration, and 28% in purchase intent, relative to the control group.
Here’s another little secret. Hollywood fashion doesn’t just come from eBay – sometimes it ends up there too. There are numerous sellers who specialize in helping people emulate the styles of Serena van der Woodsen, Carrie Bradshaw, or any other fictional fashion icon, not to mention the studios themselves, as wardrobe departments often find themselves needing to make space. Even Sir Elton John is auctioning off 259 pieces from his one-of-a-kind wardrobe!
“Even Ebon [Moss-Bachrach], who plays Richie, loves eBay,” said Courtney Wheeler, costume designer for The Bear. “That's his source for where he shops in his personal life. There’s this one shirt that we didn’t get to use this season that, trust, next season it’ll be on the top of the list. Ebon found it, and said, ‘Can Richie have this? Can you purchase it?’ I’m like, bet.”
At OUTFRONT, we know how to leverage the awesome power of out of home to reach fashionable audiences. eBay saw its brand blossom with us. Now it’s your turn.
Author: Jay Fenster, Marketing Manager @ OUTFRONT
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