Balenciaga

The Objective

Balenciaga has long been known as an innovative, avant-garde couturier of uncompromising standards – a forecaster of ready-to-wear trends in the fashion industry. Bearing in mind that TikTok is also at the forefront of shareable, trending short-form video, it was a natural next step for Balenciaga to break out onto the platform. Its mission was to raise awareness with a new audience on TikTok, as well as be the first high-end luxury brand on TikTok to test and use the TopView format.

The Solution

Balenciaga launched a shoppable campaign on TikTok over the Christmas period utilising the highly-engaging TopView format in the UK and France. In fact, the resulting numbers impressed the fashion brand so much, that it then went on to launch two Brand Takeovers as well – one for the UK market, to solidify its message, and another to extend reach across Italy.

TopView is not thumb-stopping, it’s show-stopping. Dominating and filling the whole screen upon opening the app, it’s brand-safe – only your brand is present. It autoplays with the sound on and grabs attention. Alongside mass user engagement, the format also provides the functionality to link to internal or external landing pages. In this case, Balenciaga drove viewers to its shopping pages. The ad showcased its products against a space background, blending it’s unique style of maverick creativity with clear brand and product placement, to pull users in to learning more.

Balenciaga re-used the creative for its two Brand Takeovers. Displayed in a similar way to TopView, Brand Takeover launches upon opening of the app and plays five seconds of full-screen video, again leading to a landing page.

The Results

All ads combined, the campaign drove 23M+ impressions across the UK, France and Italy. The average CTR from across markets was around 18%, and notably 20.56% in Italy.

With a combined total of 25M+ video views, user engagement rates were also well above average, showing that a new audience of TikTok users connected with Balenciaga on a personal level, and then went on to explore its luxury fashion range, with over 4.5M clicks to the landing page.