As the year ends, the holiday campaign season begins…

For luxury brands, the holiday campaign is about more than products and seasonal decor. It’s a key opportunity to push the envelope of storytelling and creative direction – to develop strategic holiday storyworlds that propel brand identity and objectives.

A storyworld is a ‘narrative universe’: a space made of settings, characters, narrative arcs, visuals, soundscapes – all the elements that come together to form stories into today’s video-first transmedia environment.

An effective holiday storyworld is like a snow globe : it captures the emotional essence of the season and infuses it into a captivating microcosmic world that entices, excites, and sets a story in motion. It’s a snapshot in time of a brand’s convictions.

We’ve analyzed this years’ campaigns to develop our recipe for an effective holiday storyworld. Read on for a selection of five key guidelines – and for a taste of luxury’s best seasonal campaigns thus far.

Make your conviction the reason for the season

The central message of a holiday campaign should be the joy of the holidays, right? No. A great holiday campaign uses the season as a way to build greater awareness of a brand’s key convictions.

One example: Miu Miu’s “Irreverent Wonder”. Miu Miu’s campaign is not only uniquely charming – it’s filled with meaning and conviction.

Actor Emma Corrin shifts from pose to pose in a whimsical yet sober visual universe designed to recall antiquated postcards. As Miu Miu indicates, images were “highlighted, frame by frame, and tinted,” to evoke the style of vintage portraits.

The resulting storyworld blends modernity and nostalgia in a soft, pastel universe offset by trilling electronic music.

The significance of this storyworld? The campaign surrounds and reveals Miu Miu’s 2024 Upcycled Collection, which focuses on repurposing old items into new, unique pieces. Much like the campaign, the Upcycled Collection is about reconciling old and new – while proposing an aspirational vision of circular economics.

The holiday campaign is also an opportunity to reaffirm evolving brand positioning. Valentino’s Avant Les Débuts holiday campaign captivates with a dreamy, decadent take on the festive season. The campaign uses the holidays as an opportunity to extend Creative Director Alessandro Michele’s new vision for Valentino with a story that follows a partygoer who relives a lavish night out.

Utilize magic in unexpected ways

Many successful holiday storyworlds integrate some form of holiday magic. A few weeks ago, we wrote about how the leading luxury brands currently utilize ‘magical realism’ to power their marketing – and during the holidays, brands double-down on this storytelling strategy.

An example: Chanel’s Winter Tale. This ad is deeply magically realist. In the opening seconds of the campaign, we see model Vittoria Ceretti by the balcony of a library in a traditional Haussmanian building, with a narrator wistfully saying, “There once lived a girl in a land without snow. She wished and wished for a cold winter blow…”

Sure enough, her world is soon engulfed in pure magic, pure snow – yet the campaign begins with a thermometer and a barren landscape. It’s quite radical for a fashion brand to hint at global warming in a holiday campaign, but it’s hard not to make the connection, and not to subsequently relate to the wonder of CHANEL’s very modern fairytale.

Another absolutely magical (if less realist) example is Prada’s “The Dinner Guests”. This campaign melds fantasy and futurism in an imaginative rendition of a traditional holiday feast, actresses and KPop stars dining alongside human-sized versions of Prada’s beloved teddy bear and robot keychain charms.

Much like Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, Prada’s keychains come to life, though not to dance, but to engage in lively discussions with fellow guests. This fantastic campaign delights the spectator’s ‘inner child’ by playing with proportions and animism – what if teddy bears and robots came to dinner?

Connect tradition with tradition

Many luxury brands are profoundly rooted in tradition that extends far beyond artisanal practices employed in product fabrication. The holidays represent an opportunity for weaving together brand tradition and seasonal traditions, linking the two together in the minds and hearts of the public.

“Wrapped in Burberry: Family and Friends” does just this. This campaign recreates the warmth of the holiday spirit with a set of portraits that propose a very Burberry take on gathering together with family and friends.

Taken on the streets of London, these portraits depict Burberry products as heirlooms, family uniforms even, to be gifted, shared, and worn together – bringing family and friends closer than ever.

Craft a memorable guest list

We expect to see stars at the forefront of major luxury campaigns, but what really caught our attention this season was the initiative taken by many brands to bring together truly eclectic casts – this year brands didn’t copy/paste the same A-List casting, but made surprising, inspired choices throughout their campaigns.

Take for example Saint Laurent’s “As Time Goes By”. This series of short films mixes models, actors, and entertainers from all horizons – from Addison Rae to Charlotte Gainsbourg to John Waters.

“Wrapped in Burberry” does the same, uniting three very different groups of families and friends in one campaign to carry different pieces of Burberry’s message. ‘Rivals’ costars David Tennant and Alex Hassell add an amical dose of British flare, underlining the brand’s unique DNA, while British-Nigerian artist Olaolu Slawn, together with his partner and two small children, photographed family-portrait style, lend a tender, familial softness to the campaign.

Drs. Herschel and Lilly Stoller, devoted Burberry clients from Nebraska, round out Burberry’s list. They’re perhaps the most fascinating casting decision of any brand this holiday – we found it brilliant to spotlight a couple from a very-underlooked part of the USA and toast them for 20 years of dedication to the brand that they love so much from across the Atlantic.

Decorate with holiday flair – but subvert expectations

And as always with luxury marketing, it’s important to lay a finger on what’s expected – only to subvert it.

With “As Time Goes By,” Saint Laurent proposes a theatrical approach to the holiday campaign with a series of short films inspired by Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Each film borrows a keyword from Proust’s legendary text – love, memory, desire, togetherness, dreaming, time – and expands on that theme through fictional scenarios that are equal parts fun, tantalizing, and intriguing.

These stylized storyworlds, imbued with both sophistication and festive cheer, prompt viewers to expect nothing less than the unexpected, while remaining altogether sober. These films push the boundaries of what we expect from a holiday campaign, flipping seasonal sentiments inside out to explore the intimate mechanisms of desire and memory at play.

Following these five guidelines, brands can be armed with the core strategy necessary to take on this vital time for sale objectives, and bring storytelling to consumers who crave a bit of magic more than ever.

This Insight was cooked up in collaboration with Marley Duet.

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