Think about you’re at a bar. Throughout the room, you see a stranger in a well-recognized merchandise of clothes. As you meet their eyes, you notice they’re carrying the identical sweater you bought on a secondhand style website 5 years in the past.
This serendipitous encounter really occurred to 1 former consumer of Depop, mentioned Kelley Barrett, inventive director of Unusual Inventive Studio, the company behind the resale platform’s newest marketing campaign. Barrett recalled studying the anecdote on social media, the place one other consumer commented, “There have to be a cause your paths crossed.”
“We wished to play up that poetry,” Barrett mentioned. “An entire stranger is taking your merchandise and carrying it–what if there’s this deep connection between you?”
At present (Sept 2), Depop launched its largest U.S. advert marketing campaign to-date, “The place Style Acknowledges Style,” primarily based on the concept a shared sense of fashion can inextricably hyperlink individuals from worlds aside.
Unusual, which expanded its partnership with Depop from the U.Ok. to the U.S., dramatized that feeling by means of a surreal advert by which a person’s sweater begins to unravel. One of many strings pulls him throughout metropolis streets, places of work, homes, and landscapes, till he lastly meets the particular person on the opposite aspect of the yarn: a girl who purchased his sweater on Depop.
“The initiative celebrates sudden connections—these moments the place somebody simply will get your style—and spotlights ‘Depopelgangers’ who discover their fashion twins by means of shared style preferences,” mentioned Sonia Birdie, interim chief product officer and advertising chief at Depop.
The marketing campaign will roll out nationwide throughout out-of-home, streaming radio, related TV, and paid social.
Resale’s explosive development
Based in 2011 and headquartered in London, Depop, now a subsidiary of Etsy, has a worldwide consumer base of greater than 43.5 million individuals and is the quickest rising resale platform within the U.S., in line with Birdie. Whereas it’s well-known within the U.Ok. and amongst Gen Z, it needs to broaden its attraction throughout geographies and demographics.
“After we partnered with Unusual, the transient was to shift the notion of resale right into a broader cultural house,” Birdie defined. “We wished to develop a daring, culture-driving thought that will resonate with new audiences, whereas nonetheless interesting to our core demographic.”
Depop has grown alongside the explosion of resale style. The worldwide secondhand attire market is projected to achieve $367 billion by 2029, and the U.S. secondhand style market grew by 14% final yr, in line with fellow resale platform ThredUp’s newest Resale Report.
Past Depop’s core viewers of Gen Z, the model now sees new teams embracing the platform, reminiscent of dad and mom shopping for secondhand clothes for his or her youngsters, mentioned Birdie.
But as round style turns into extra common, Depop wished to indicate that it’s “a cultural norm, not simply an alternate—resale might be a simple, on a regular basis behavior for anybody,” she mentioned.
A contemporary tone
That purpose meant altering the tone of Depop’s promoting.
“We wished to maneuver previous the academic copy we now have traditionally utilized in our campaigns, and lean right into a extra emotive and cinematic method of storytelling,” mentioned Birdie.
That’s the place the concept of style knowledgeable the marketing campaign. The brand new tagline, “The place Style Acknowledges Style,” is about highlighting the “style stage and human connection” on Depop, Barrett mentioned.
Depop and Unusual additionally wished the adverts “to be welcoming,” mentioned the company’s inventive director Katie Dinardo. “There’s a notion amongst some older millennials who won’t assume their stuff belongs on Depop, or that individuals gained’t need it.”
Because the marketing campaign evolves, Depop will proceed to emphasise its group and “highlight the true individuals behind the platform: the passionate sellers, consumers, and elegance twins who discover one another by means of shared aesthetics,” Birdie mentioned.
“Secondhand isn’t solely sustainable, it’s additionally the place probably the most attention-grabbing, personalised wardrobes are constructed by means of real fashion connections inside our wildly various and international group,” she added. “It’s one factor making secondhand accessible, nevertheless it additionally must be thrilling.”
