Marks & Spencer

The objective

Styling a new audience with the perfect creative partner

Marks and Spencer – known across the UK as M&S – is a major multinational retailer renowned for high-quality. This autumn, the heritage brand wanted to expand its reach to include a younger audience by creating a presence on TikTok. Its only challenge was limited creative resources.

With the clear objective of creating engaging, trend-based content, the retailer needed to find a way to facilitate it quickly and at scale – enter TikTok Creative Exchange (TTCX).

TTCX is a platform dedicated to pairing brands (like M&S) with creative partners — offering a single place for effective content production, seamless collaboration and full-view campaign insights. Aiming to improve ‘style perception’ amongst a younger TikTok audience, M&S turned to TTCX for a simple, scalable way to tap into the nuances of TikTok-native content and overcome its creative constraints.

The Solution

Fashioning high-quality, TikTok-first assets – fast

With TTCX, M&S discovered Nonsensical, a TikTok Marketing Agency and the perfect creative partner to help the retailer achieve its goals.

Providing a solution to M&S’ creative challenge, Nonsensical got to work unearthing the best strategy for the retailer. The agency began by conducting a comprehensive analysis of TikTok category trends, user behaviours and platform features – such as reply-to-comment – to ascertain how M&S could reach relevant TikTok users, boosting style perception from the get-go.

Nonsensical then worked with a range of relevant TikTok creators. They produced native-style fashion content for M&S, including: ‘How to layer for autumn’, ‘Here’s why I’m obsessed with M&S’ and of course – a TikTok classic – GRWM (Get Ready With Me). 

Thanks to TTCX, M&S collated enough varied content to experiment with different formats, adapt to emerging trends and maintain a consistent presence on TikTok – generating some big results.

The Results 

Doubling CTR and boosting brand relevance with style and scale

Through a winning combination of Nonsencial’s insights and creator expertise, the TTCX content repositioned M&S as a go-to brand for autumn fashion.

Despite limited creative resources, M&S found a scalable solution to meet its creative demands through TTCX. And, with the help of Nonsensical, the assets felt platform-native, tapping into TikTok trends with impressive results. 

Compared to other seasonal M&S campaigns, the TTCX content achieved more than double CTR (Click-through rate) and VTR (View-through rate), and boosted average watch time significantly. By leveraging TTCX to create TikTok-first content, M&S drove huge reach and engagement with a new audience. And, by testing video formats through TTCX, the retailer gained a better understanding of how to make an impact on future TikTok campaigns.