eBay is the OG digital shopping destination for pre-owned and vintage fashion but lacked cultural relevance in the fashion world.
Our challenge: how do we build eBay's fashion credentials?
Our audience, Gen Z, cares more about the environment than any other generation. In fact, 64% of Gen Z prefer to shop pre-owned and vintage fashion before buying something new. Year over year, the U.S. secondhand market has grown more than 15%, 7 times faster than the broader U.S. clothing market.
With these insights in mind, eBay thought the time was ripe to make a statement and put pre-owned fashion center stage on the world's biggest fashion stage, the Met Gala; where billions worldwide tune in to find out what’s NEW in fashion.
Don’t just own a moment at the Met Gala, take over the red carpet and drive the conversation.
Initially, our goal was like any other fashion brand: dress a superstar celebrity walking the red carpet.
But once we dug into the data and analyzed past Met Gala livestreams, we discovered that celebrities, on average, received just a minute of airtime, yet the host, who conducted all the interviews, was on air for almost all of the time. On top of that, the host was overlooked by all the big fashion brands and did not cost millions to partner with.
That was our eureka moment: Dress the host and have them drive the conversation on the red carpet.
By partnering with the host instead of high-profile stars, eBay’s pre-owned fashion was center screen for a staggering 37 minutes—that’s 25% of the livestream, with mentions of eBay dominating the broadcast.
And, by surrounding the host with shoppable ads, we made it easy for the millions watching to shop the pre-owned look, directly from eBay.
The world noticed. Social media lit up with comments and videos about the host, La La Anthony wearing pre-owned fashion from eBay. Major publications from around the world wrote about eBay’s pre-owned presence at the Met Gala, including The Philadelphia Inquirer with the headline: “The Real Star of the Met Gala red carpet? eBay.”
This was the first time ever pre-owned fashion took over the world's biggest fashion stage: the Met Gala, an event about what's NEW in fashion.
