The holidays are the most crowded marketing moment of the year. Every brand is competing for attention and Gen Z has become increasingly skilled at tuning it all out.
For eos, launching our Holiday Cashmere Collection and new body mists meant finding a way to break through the noise in a way that felt authentic to how Gen Z actually discovers brands today.
Our insight was simple: Gen Z doesn’t just discover brands through traditional marketing. They discover them through experiences worth sharing.
And nowhere does culture spread faster than on college campuses, where one moment on the quad can quickly become hundreds of posts across TikTok and Instagram.
But we also recognized something else. For college students, the weeks leading up to the holidays are exciting, but also incredibly stressful. Between exams, deadlines, and travel plans, small moments of joy with friends become especially meaningful.
So instead of just launching our Holiday Collection online or through traditional marketing efforts, we brought it directly to campuses through the eos Holiday Express, our first-ever college campus tour. We completely transformed five universities into festive destinations where students could sip, sample, and share their way through the season.
The goal was clear:
drive awareness for the Holiday Collection and new body mists among Gen Z turn trial & product discovery into a shareable cultural moment while surprising & delighting students
spark engagement & peer-to-peer social content across campuses
To connect with Gen Z, brands need to go beyond traditional marketing. This audience values experiences, authenticity, and moments they can participate in and share with their communities.
We designed our first campus tour, the eos Holiday Express, with that reality in mind. Instead of simply promoting a product launch, we created a social-first experiential activation designed to turn product discovery into meaningful connections.
College campuses became the perfect stage. They function like real-world social networks where excitement spreads quickly across dorms, classrooms, and friend groups. When something interesting happens on campus, word travels fast.
The idea behind the Holiday Express was simple: create an experience students would genuinely want to participate in and talk about.
We strategically selected five East Coast universities located in markets with highly diverse Gen Z communities where peer-driven discovery travels quickly across campus communities.
Each activation featured a curated journey through several interactive touchpoints:
• Body Mist Trial Station where students experienced the holiday fragrances
• Product Sampling Display featuring the Holiday Cashmere Collection
• Smooth Sips Beverage Trailer serving coffee and hot cocoa customized with syrups inspired by the collection’s seasonal scents including Peppermint, Cocoa, Caramel, and Vanilla Cashmere
• Holiday Photo Moment inside a larger-than-life present box where students unlocked prizes by posting on social media
• Prize Wheel Activation rewarding participation with eos products
• Shea Mascot, our character ambassador who engaged attendees and created additional photo moments
These elements allowed students to smell, try, and interact with the collection through multiple senses, transforming fragrance discovery into a memorable holiday experience. Students didn’t just pass by; they stepped into the Holiday Express and hopped aboard for the full eos experience.
To embed the activation within campus communities, eos partnered with student creators and campus brand ambassadors who helped build anticipation ahead of each stop and encouraged classmates to attend.
Students quickly became part of the experience itself—inviting friends, sharing the moment, and spreading awareness organically across campus.
In the spirit of the holidays, one student at each campus received a “Home for the Holidays” travel voucher, helping them reunite with loved ones.
Beyond the activation footprint, festive visuals, branded drink sleeves, and crowds of students waiting in line transformed attendees into what we called “walking brand ambassadors,” extending the experience across campus.
As eos’ first-ever campus tour, the Holiday Express also required agility behind the scenes. Each university presented unique logistical challenges, from adapting activation footprints to solving real-time mascot adjustments during events. Staying nimble and solutions-oriented enabled our teams to keep the experience running smoothly at every stop.
The result was a cohesive activation where product storytelling, sensory engagement, and peer-driven participation came together to create a holiday experience students genuinely wanted to be part of.
The Holiday Express created an unforgettable holiday moment across the campuses while delivering meaningful brand engagement.
Product trial was one of the campaign’s most valuable outcomes. By allowing students to physically experience the Holiday Cashmere Collection through scent and sampling, eos created direct product discovery with thousands of potential new consumers.
The experience also generated strong peer-driven participation. Students attended with friends, shared drinks and photo moments together, and encouraged classmates to stop by between classes. What started as a campus activation quickly evolved into a student-driven holiday moment.
The results:
But the real win? The impact went beyond the numbers. The connection we built throughout the campuses, bringing community and culture together IRL in a way that will last far beyond the tour.
The cultural momentum online was undeniable. Students at schools that weren’t even on our tour route were flooding our comments asking us to pull up next, making it clear the Holiday Express was sparking real FOMO far beyond the five campuses we visited. At the universities we did activate on, the energy was just as strong. Students joked that this was the one thing worth skipping class for, with lines forming before we even opened. That kind of anticipation and online conversation proved we weren’t just hosting an event; we were creating a moment no one wanted to miss.
