Last fall, H&M embarked on a strategic plan to elevate their brand experience and reignite their fashion DNA across various touchpoints, including in-store, online, and through a large-scale global event series celebrating fashion and music. The event series was conceived as H&M&, in a nod to the spirit of collaboration that has always been integral to H&M. The H&M& series kicked off with H&M&London in September and culminated with H&M&New York in November, with both events featuring special performances by Charli xcx.
In total, 14 unique events were hosted across 8 separate fashion capitals across the globe including London, Berlin, Paris, New York, Munich, Milan, Hamburg and Stockholm. Each event featured special fashion drops and had their own unique spin with city hosts and creative partners curated to capture and complement the essence of the individual city’s relationship with music and fashion – inviting local customers to experience the H&M brand and its rich history.
With this event series, H&M aimed to engage and resonate with younger, fashion-forward customers by creating memorable moments that showcased H&M’s design prowess. By exploring the relationship between fashion and music and collaborating with local creative communities, H&M sought to connect with customers on a personal level and increase brand consideration and awareness. These events aligned with H&M’s ultimate goal of making fashion accessible to all. By offering heightened fashion collections and experiences to a global audience, H&M’s objective was to strengthen its perception as an elevated fashion brand to a wider audience.
The H&M& event series kicked off London Fashion Week in September with an unforgettable consumer activation and concert led by Charli xcx, coinciding with the launch of H&M’s AW2024 collection of which Charli xcx was a campaign star. Other events in Europe included performances by Lykke Li, Troye Sivan, Caroline Polachek, Arca, OFFSET and more, featuring product launches including H&M’s AW24 Studio Collection and Men’s Atelier.
In the US, H&M hosted two impressive NYC events – collaborating with various culturally and locally relevant partners across music and fashion scenes. Aligning with H&M’s ethos of liberating fashion for the many – customers and the general public were invited to experience H&M’s reinvigorated brand through social media, OOH marketing, and targeted email and SMS communications.H&M partnered with over 85 influential creators and celebrities across both events to create content on various social platforms. NYC city host Amelia Gray also released special product curations on HM.com after each event to provide fashion inspiration to customers nationwide.
In October, the brand hosted a day of programming at H&M SOHO, beginning with a panel featuring VenusX and Ian Isiah and a listening room with DJ sets from Guillaume Berg, Dam Funk, VenusX, and Heron Preston. Guests had the opportunity to preview the second drop of H&M’s collaboration with Heron Preston.The day culminated with a celebrity-filled Block Party where H&M transformed the stretch of Mercer Street behind H&M SOHO into a community celebration featuring DJ sets by Kaytranada, Kitty Ca$h and Channel Tres.
To close out the exciting roster of events, in November H&M took over Times Square for a momentous surprise concert with Charli xcx – celebrating H&M’s holiday collection as well as the reopening of their newly redesigned Times Square store. Surrounding the TSX stage concert, H&M took over 10+ digital billboards featuring curated digital content and a concert livefeed. In advance, H&M promoted the concert across owned social channels and worked with partners including Paper Magazine, Dazed, and @starterpacksofNYC to help spread awareness. Digital screens at select H&M stores also promoted the event to drive awareness. H&M also hosted a sweepstakes for loyalty Members where 5 lucky winners and +1’s received a 2-day VIP experience including accommodations at Public hotel, a branded dinner, an H&M shopping spree, and special access to the concert. Following the concert, H&M and Amelia Gray hosted a star-studded after-party at Hotel Chelsea featuring DJ sets by DJ Pee .Wee, Oscar Nñ,and k.tea.
With any large-scale event comes unique challenges, which was only amplified by producing 14 events across the globe within 3 months. Each event required strategic alignment between global and local teams as well as external agencies to ensure local relevancy and maintain a consistent look and feel. In NYC, both events took place outdoors, which required specific city permits that impacted announcement and event strategies, production timelines, capacity, and overall event flow. The Times Square concert was particularly challenging due to strict regulations that limited to only being able to announce the concert 30 minutes beforehand.
The entire global event series provided H&M with invaluable takeaways on how to successfully engage existing customers and acquire new ones through unforgettable experiences. The events highlighted the power of social media and experiential marketing in amplifying brand awareness and consideration. Below is a breakdown of key results from both NYC events:
Combined both NYC events garnered a Total Reach of over 1.5 Billion and a Media Impact Value of over $3.1 Million across both press and social media in North America alone, according to Launchmetrics.
Coverage in key media outlets spread awareness of H&M’s elevated brand direction and fashion collections: Vogue, WWD, Harper’s Bazaar, NYLON, Paper Magazine, Glossy, Ad Age, People, V Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and more.
Impactful partnerships with influencers and celebrities, all dressed in H&M, aligned the brand with some of the most respected voices in fashion and music including Charlix xcx, Amelia Gray, Kaytranada, Emily Ratajkowski, Julia Fox, Alex Consani, Hari Nef, Lucky Blue and Nara Smith, Riley Keough, Irina Shayk, Lila Moss, Iris Law, Shay Mitchell, and more.
Following these events, H&M saw a positive impact to brand performance in the NYC area across multiple KPIs including brand health, loyalty recruitment, search, online traffic, and conversion and omni selling. In Q4, H&M observed that NYC overindexed compared to the rest of the US in both loyalty recruitment and share of search.
The overwhelming turnout, with over 8K attendees across both events, and the online virality helped H&M reach audiences far and wide.
