The Bay Canada

The Objective

Making spirits bright with a big brand moment

Founded in 1670, Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) is North America's oldest company. The Bay operates thebay.com, one of Canada's largest premium life and style digital platforms. The Bay's digital-first online retail shopping experience seamlessly connects to a network of 85 brick and mortar stores while giving Canadians an unrivaled assortment of fashion, home, beauty products, and more to purchase online. To celebrate the holidays and position The Bay as an inspiring and exciting digital destination for holiday gift-giving, The Bay partnered with TikTok to bring excitement to the brand's famous holiday windows with an immersive omnichannel approach.

The Solution

Decking the Hashtag Challenge halls with Branded Effect, TikCode, and Creators

TikTok has become the go-to place for holiday shopping discovery and inspiration. To get into the gifting spirit, The Bay wrapped up nearly all of TikTok's advertising solutions—Hashtag Challenge, Branded Effect with TikCode, TopView, In-Feed Ads, Creators, and more—to create a major brand moment and a first-of-its-kind omnichannel retail shopping experience. The Bay went all in and partnered exclusively with TikTok on its "Holiday Your Way'' campaign to strengthen the brand's position as the number one destination for holiday shopping while driving consideration among millennial style and quality seekers.

The Bay made a list and checked it twice when designing its omnichannel "Holiday Your Way" campaign to create a unique user experience that blended digital with the physical world. In stores, The Bay put a TikTok twist on its famous holiday windows, with the star of the show being a special branded TikCode that unlocked a branded scan effect—making The Bay the first in Canada to launch a branded scan effect. By scanning the TikCode featuring the brand's signature Bay stripes, customers were driven to a Hashtag Challenge Plus Page where they could discover #HBHoliday creator and user content and participate in the challenge. Users could also browse an online retail shop with a curated selection of stocking stuffers trending on the platform.

Meanwhile, The Bay partnered with both French and English creators to develop videos to promote the campaign and participate in the Hashtag Challenge. Creators like @dominiquebakerofficial, @salehfamily, @lafamilleventura and @iamchriskabeya took viewers through a variety of inclusive holiday experiences beyond traditional Christmas. The videos were used as official videos and In-Feed Ads, helping The Bay show up in an authentic way while encouraging participation in the Hashtag Challenge throughout the campaign’s flight. The Bay also used Branded Effect to increase participation in the Hashtag Challenge by lowering the barrier to entry with a fun and festive way to participate. Finally, The Bay used TopView to drive mass awareness and increase participation. TopView is the first video users see when they open the app, making it TikTok's biggest billboard and a great solution to meet The Bay's awareness and engagement goals.

The Results

Creating an impactful shift for a legacy brand

When it comes to Gen Z and the holidays, TikTok is the place to be: 74% of TikTok users have been inspired to find out more about a product and brand they've discovered on the platform, and 4 out of 5 Gen Z users influenced their parents to buy something on TikTok. The Bay took note and fully committed to TikTok to help position itself as the destination for holiday shopping.

The "Holiday Your Way" campaign created a massive shift for the brand, transitioning from traditional marketing channels to a TikTok-first activation that spanned digital, online retail, and in-store—and the TikTok community enthusiastically got into the spirit of the season! The Hashtag Challenge with Branded Effect had close to 1 billion video views, with 196 thousand video creations from 86 thousand creators and an engagement rate of 11.52%. In addition, TopView was a big-time driver in awareness and participation, with 12.6M views and a click-through rate of 3.86%. Meanwhile, In-Feed Ads featuring creator content helped The Bay show up consistently and stay top of mind throughout the campaign, delivering 20.7 million impressions. Finally, the combined TikTok ad solutions and omnichannel approach showed what's possible when lighting up big brand moments: a post-campaign brand lift study showed a +6.0% increase in Ad recall, significantly outperforming industry benchmarks.