2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

OBJECTIVE
As a heritage brand, HBC saw a need to modernize its customer strategy and repair outdated views of the brand by reaching a new demographic of customers – millennial and Gen Z shoppers.

But when COVID-19 hit, it impacted not only the highly-competitive retail environment but consumer habits for these hard to reach audiences.
In order to increase market share for these shoppers and win over the competition, the brand needed to build an authentic connection with this audience – and fast.

With this business problem in mind, Cossette Media put together a proactive and innovative opportunity to insert HBC into a cultural moment for this new target within an emerging digital community.

INSIGHT
COVID had supercharged the gaming industry significantly, consumption was up and new titles were continuing to emerge. One of those titles was Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a simulation video game that lets players live out an alternate life on a pleasant island populated by quirky animal villagers. Gaming is not just for nerds, with over 11 million copies of the game selling within the first week of launch. Animal Crossing was on its way to becoming a top global destination for fashion creation and discovery.

EXECUTION
So, within one week, the agency pitched, executed, and launched the HBC Stripes Animal Crossing integration.

Cossette Media custom-built HBC stripes clothing and furniture in the game to give players a truly Canadian fashion and decor experience. All the designs were sharable, so players could download them for free to outfit their avatars and island homes.

The designs were circulated across HBC’s social channels, featuring both the downloadable game codes and shoppable links for all the items. The links drove directly to product pages on thebay.com, so players could match their avatar IRL.

Since customizing items in the game is free, and does not require approvals from Nintendo, the agency was able to turn around the campaign quickly and for zero dollars.

RESULTS
The team used the world of Animal Crossing to drive awareness and relevance of HBC as a digital retailer for millennials and Gen Zs. While Nintendo doesn’t share data from in-game integrations (yet), this initiative blew engagement rates with the brand out of the water.

Across HBC’s social channels, this single organic post amassed nearly 200K impressions and 12K engagements. This resulted in a 165% increase in engagement rate, making it one of the top posts of the year.

The designs were a hit on the earned media cycle, with coverage reaching over 100,000 Canadians in trade publications, industry blogs, and on fashion and culture sites such as Fashion Magazine.

The largest indicator of effectiveness was the cultural impact of the initiative, with countless Canadians downloading, using, and then sharing their own HBC striped Animal Crossing creations. HBC was able to capitalize on the height of the game buzz and become the first ever Canadian brand to activate on the platform – no budget or brief required.

Credits

Alessia Grosso, Strategy Director at Cossette Media
Beth Thomson, Business Lead at Cossette Media
Jessica Mathers, Media Planner at Cossette Media
Brenda Zhou, Social Media Specialist at Hudson’s Bay
Michael Furman, Ad Operations Specialist at Hudsons Bay