Brand Waves This Week
Depop launches its new campaign with Zara Larsson, Miu Miu redefines contemporary femininity, and UPDATE puts Kim Kardashian at the center of its latest campaign.
Welcome to The Brand Waves, your weekly snapshot of the most innovative marketing campaigns from around the world. In this edition, discover stories, strategies, and creative ideas that are redefining how brands connect with audiences.
This newsletter is sponsored by Tracksuit, the always-on brand tracker built for marketers and agencies to answer the question “Is my strategy working?”
Today’s newsletter includes: Depop taps Zara Larsson to celebrate a more personal, creativity-driven approach to fashion; Miu Miu redefines contemporary femininity with Hailey Bieber and Xiao Wen Ju; Coca-Cola concludes its Feel It All campaign; adidas debuts Originals Sport; Hollister turns Lollapalooza into a branded experience; UPDATE puts Kim Kardashian at the center of a campaign highlighting the role of founders in brand building; TRESemmé unveils Hot Curl Summer starring Belmont Cameli; and Dove Men+Care uses football to promote a more authentic representation of masculinity.
Depop launches new global campaign with Zara Larsson
Depop unveils its new global campaign starring Zara Larsson, featuring a four-part content series directed by acclaimed filmmaker Dave Meyers.
The campaign is built around the idea that life can be complicated, but getting dressed shouldn’t be.
Through four short films, the brand shows how discovering, buying, and selling fashion on Depop can be an intuitive and enjoyable experience.
"Zara has an incredible eye for style because she approaches fashion with curiosity rather than rules," said Steve Dool, Brand and Creative Director at Depop. "Her mix of vintage, emerging designers and personal treasures feels effortless, and that's exactly the spirit of Depop. This campaign isn't just about people mimicking what Zara wears. It's a celebration of the creativity and individuality that comes from discovering fashion that's uniquely your own, and having a little fun with it."
Miu Miu unveils the Fall/Winter 2026 campaign
For its Fall/Winter 2026 campaign, Miu Miu has enlisted Hailey Bieber and Xiao Wen Ju to embody a contemporary vision of femininity, captured by Zoe Ghertner against a suspended nocturnal landscape.
The campaign centers on a fluid, self-defined femininity, balancing vulnerability and control, innocence and awareness, intimacy and detachment.
Clothing becomes the medium through which these tensions are expressed: the garments are presented not merely as objects of desire, but as tools of personal expression, capable of both protecting and revealing the wearer.
Coca-Cola concludes Feel It All, its FIFA World Cup 26™ campaign
With the final bringing the FIFA World Cup 26™ to a close, Feel It All, the global platform through which Coca-Cola accompanied the entire tournament, also comes to an end.
The campaign’s final film, No Better Feeling, captures the emotions every football fan knows all too well: the wait before a VAR check, the tension, the disappointment that feels inevitable and, just a few moments later, the explosion of joy when everything changes. Coca-Cola therefore chooses to tell the story of what football makes people feel, positioning itself as the brand that accompanies every moment of the match.
Tracking The Brand Waves - FIFA World Cup
Most conversations around sponsorship focus on the visibility generated during the competition. But the more interesting question is: what remains after the final whistle?
Our partner Tracksuit monitored the leading FIFA World Cup sponsors throughout the tournament, tracking changes in awareness, consideration and preference.
One finding stands out: Coca-Cola, Adidas and McDonald's are the only three sponsors to rank in the top three across all three metrics.
This isn’t simply a reflection of their size. It’s a reminder that the world’s biggest brands continue investing in brand building long after they’ve achieved mass awareness. Coca-Cola has been a FIFA partner since 1978, Adidas since 1970, and McDonald’s since 1994.
Iconic brands continue investing to defend their mental availability, maintaining the strong presence in consumers’ minds that they have built over decades.
This is the kind of insight Tracksuit shares fortnightly in their newsletter, Shorts: brand tracking analysis, consumer insights and case studies designed to understand what is really driving brand growth.
adidas unveils its first Originals Sport collection
adidas introduces Originals Sport, its first collection to combine the iconic aesthetic of adidas Originals with performance technologies designed for training.
The campaign stars Tate McRae, Emilia Mernes, and professional volleyball player Harper Murray, bringing together three personalities who naturally move between culture, creativity, and sport, perfectly reflecting the world Originals Sport was created for.
The collection responds to the growing demand for individuality. Inspired by the iconic Superstar tracksuit and the design heritage of adidas Originals, Originals Sport challenges the idea that workout wear has to look a certain way, encouraging women to express their personal style without compromising on performance.
Hollister unveils an exclusive collection and the Feel Good House at Lollapalooza
With the launch of the Feel Good House and an exclusive capsule collection, Hollister is expanding its partnership with Lollapalooza, turning one of the summer’s biggest music festivals into a space for community engagement.
The seven-piece capsule collection reinterprets Y2K aesthetics, highlighting how the resurgence of early-2000s fashion continues to shape fashion marketing.
DJ sets, exclusive product drops, and interactive installations transform the Feel Good House into an immersive experience designed to generate organic content and amplify the brand’s visibility across social media.
UPDATE launches its first campaign starring Kim Kardashian
UPDATE launches its first omnichannel campaign with a digital hero film starring Kim Kardashian, the brand’s co-founder.
The campaign is built around a question people have been asking for years: How does Kim Kardashian get it all done?
The brand’s answer is simple: sustained energy, focus, and productivity. But the most interesting message goes beyond that. Kim isn’t simply acting as the face of the campaign - she’s telling UPDATE’s story as its co-founder, making her presence an integral part of the brand’s narrative.
In partnership with SARAL
The Creator Edit - UPDATE
UPDATE’s latest campaign highlights a shift that’s becoming increasingly clear in marketing: founders are becoming some of the most influential creators for their own brands.
Kim Kardashian is an outlier in terms of reach. What makes this campaign interesting, however, isn’t her audience size - it’s her role as a founder. She’s not simply endorsing UPDATE; she’s building value for a business she co-founded and has a genuine stake in.
Most brands won’t work with celebrities of Kim’s scale, but the same principle applies across creator marketing. Creators who have a genuine connection to what they’re promoting - and a real incentive to see the brand succeed - tend to build more trust than those with no authentic relationship to the product.
This is exactly why creator selection matters. Audience size can generate awareness, but relevance, credibility, and alignment are often what drive meaningful business results.
That’s the idea behind SARAL’s Predictable Influence Pyramid. Every creator plays a different role: some drive awareness, others build trust, and others influence conversions. Understanding which creators to work with - and at which stage of the funnel - is what separates a scalable creator strategy from a one-off campaign.
With SARAL, you can discover creators who are genuinely aligned with your brand, analyze their audience and engagement, and manage your entire creator program from a single platform.
If you’re building your influencer marketing program, book a demo with the SARAL team and mention that you discovered them through this newsletter to receive $500 off, white-glove onboarding and monthly strategy sessions included.
TRESemmé taps Belmont Cameli to star in its new Hot Curl Summer social campaign
With its new Hot Curl Summer campaign, TRESemmé has chosen actor Belmont Cameli as the face of the brand’s Bouncy Curls collection.
Cameli embodies one of the most recognizable tropes in today’s social media culture: the irresistible “campus crush” with effortlessly perfect, natural-looking hair.
The campaign showcases how to achieve soft, lightweight, and well-defined curls through a simple styling routine featuring hero products from the range, including Bouncy Curls Defining Cream and Defining Mousse.
Dove Men+Care unveils Portraits of Care
With Portraits of Care, its new global campaign created in partnership with Getty Images, Dove Men+Care explores the value of authentic emotional expression among men through one of the world’s most powerful cultural moments: the FIFA World Cup™ 2026.
The campaign features a series of portraits capturing fans experiencing moments of joy, heartbreak, relief, and celebration, turning football into a universal language that speaks to vulnerability, empathy, and human connection.
With this campaign, Dove Men+Care further expands a brand platform it has been building for years, continuing to promote a more open and inclusive representation of masculinity.
If you’re looking for even more inspiration, check out last week’s edition of Brand Waves This Week for more standout campaigns and unmissable creative ideas!
Brand Waves This Week
BÉIS refreshes its Core Collection; Gap introduces the capsule collection in collaboration with Hailey Bieber; Timberland and Jacquemus reinterpret a footwear icon; ASOS appoints Rina Lipa as Style Dilemma Director.
The wave doesn’t stop here.
We’ll be back next week with more stories shaping the future of brands, tech and culture. Catch the next one with us.
Great intel! I always look forward to your articles everyweek〰️