Matthias Haase, Managing Director Zalando Studios
“It was so great to see the level of quality, the many amazing ideas, the great execution as well as the great campaign results.”
News & Updates
Recap: The ZMS Partner Awards 2022
The ZMS Partner Awards celebrate the best of the best when it comes to marketing campaigns on Zalando and beyond.
Last year at the ZMS Partner Awards 2021, we were celebrating having crossed the 10,000 campaign mark, and this year we’re looking at 17,000 campaigns – an incredible achievement that we could only pull off together with you, our partners! That’s why this year for The ZMS Partner Awards, we added an extra category to the existing three to help celebrate the best of the best of the campaigns we ran together with you last year.
Our incredible winners this year were:
The Estée Lauder Companies
adidas
GAP
WE Fashion
So without further ado, let us present our second ZMS Partner Awards, 2022.
Four Categories of Excellence
We got so many applications for the ZMS Partner Award 2022, making it very difficult to choose winners when the standard of campaigns was so high. Luckily the award was split into four categories:
- Seasonal & Category
- Data & Insights
- Creative & Storytelling
- and our brand new category for Up & Coming Partners
That means there were four overall winning brands out of twelve nominees! The Seasonal Category highlights campaigns that celebrated special moments of the year like the holiday season or peak traffic moments like Cyber Week; the Data & Insights Category highlights campaigns that leveraged data in exciting and novel ways; the Creative & Storytelling Category highlights campaigns that showcased exciting creativity and excellent storytelling; and last but certainly not least, our new and exciting category for Up-and-Coming brands celebrates brands who are new to Zalando or new to ZMS and have just launched their first campaigns in 2021 with us.
Nevertheless, choosing wasn’t easy. It took five hard-working jury members to review and score all campaign entries, in order to choose the nominees and winners. Let us introduce you to our jury:
Diana Berte, VP Commercial at ZMS
“We’ve seen so many interesting and inspiring campaigns, it really makes me excited about what we’ll achieve together with you – our partners – in the years to come!”
Claudia Reth, VP Category Specialities at Zalando
“Thanks to all the participants and nominees, the level of quality and creativity was really amazing to see.”
Jens Bargmann, Director Marketing Strategy & Operations at ZMS
“We saw several campaigns that I find quite inspiring, when data is used to inform creative decisions, which then influence media strategy and performance, I think that’s really a key to success.”
Sebastian Kemmler, Founder & Managing Director of Kemmler Kemmler
“Congratulations to the brands who created campaigns that were very different and arresting, with great numbers!”
Who were the winners? Drum roll please…
Seasonal & Category
Our three finalists in the Seasonal Category were Estée Lauder, KIKO Milano and Tommy Hilfiger.
Winner: Estée Lauder Companies
Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) wanted to create a campaign that fits to all their brands and covers the topics of wellbeing and Holiday season gifting. Together with ZMS, ELC put together a unique creative concept that included multiple ELC brands. Want to hear the full story? We’ve got you! Check it out here.
Estée Lauder’s results:
So how did the campaign perform? Pretty great by the looks of things! With 206 million Ad Impressions, 6.8 million Product Detail Page Views and a 182% increase in aggregated Year over Year growth of item sales, this campaign was a real success! Well done Estée Lauder.
Data & Insights
Our three finalists in the Data & Insights Category were adidas, Toni Pons and Next.
Winner: adidas
Through a ZMS Insights survey, adidas discovered that although adidas customers care deeply about sustainability, they really struggle to translate their values into actions when they go to stores or shop online. So adidas first teamed up with ZMS Insights, making use of the ZMS Insights Dashboard & Zalando Attitude Behavior Gap Report. After this, with the help of ZMS Creative and ZMS Media, they created a 360-degree campaign, driven by the data. adidas took the strategic decision to launch during a peak traffic and sales period, ensuring that the campaign was a commercial success and also focused on a specific multi-faceted communication approach connecting Gen Z with the people surrounding them.
adidas’ results:
This campaign was a great success for adidas, who had 10% more purchases during the campaign from a Gen Z audience vs an average audience. There were also more than 300 Million media Impressions and more than 51 million engagements. Congratulations on the great campaign adidas!
Creative & Storytelling
Our three finalists in the Creative Category were GAP, Mammut, and ASICS.
Winner: Gap
GAP found that there was a perception that their efforts and dedication to the LGBTQI+ Community weren’t as visible in Europe as in North America, and they sought to change this with their campaign on Zalando. Gap’s objectives were to showcase the brand’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and raise brand awareness in Europe. They also wished to create an authentic campaign to give iconic individuals a platform to amplify their voices and inspire their audience to interact with the campaign in a meaningful way. GAP worked with ZMS Creative to develop a campaign concept where older members of the LGBTQI+ community could share their Untold Tales Of Pride. As authenticity was key for this campaign, heavy engagement was needed from both GAP and Zalando’s Diversity and Inclusivity Guilds to ensure the campaign message stayed authentic, was respectful to the LGBTQI+ community in Germany, and true to GAP’s brand DNA.
GAP’s results:
GAP achieved all objectives specified in the campaign brief and also received a lot of positive feedback from customers. In terms of KPIs Gap had a 25% increase in customer growth and a 125% uplift in new brand followers on Zalando, as well as 44 million impressions. Great job Gap!
Up & Coming Partners
Our three finalists in the Up & Coming Partners category were WE Fashion, FLO and Redefined Fashion.
Winner: WE Fashion
Now, last but not least, let’s look at WE Fashion, who sought to broaden their customer base by acquiring new customers in key markets. They also sought to increase their ranking across categories and achieve a healthy return on advertising spend. Together with ZMS, WE Fashion used a data-driven approach that started with a deep-dive analysis of customer and visitor behavior as well as basket size and value. For their Wear the Moment campaign, WE Fashion used data to calculate exactly what a new customer would cost and the budget needed to achieve this, launching a 5-month campaign in which the chosen media mix included placements for both brand awareness and performance, optimized towards best conversion.
WE Fashion’s results:
WE Fashion generated 69K new customers thanks to this campaign, a 7.7% product detail page conversion rate and a Return on Ad Spend of 29.1. Amazing job WE Fashion!
Impressions from our ZMS Partner Awards dinner
