As the year draws to a close, the beauty and fashion industries are taking stock — not just of what worked, but of what truly impacted culture. In 2025, marketers had to justify value at a time when many consumers are pulling back on spending, earn trust in an oversaturated market, and capture attention when launches are a dime a dozen and brands often compete in the same categories at the same time.
To close out the year, Glossy asked top marketers to reflect on the campaigns they wish they had come up with — and that will inspire their own work in the coming year.
Robyn DelMonte (@girlbosstown), a content creator known for her takes on marketing and brand:
“One campaign I absolutely loved this year was the Gap x Katseye collaboration, which felt like the Mecca of my favorite Y2K advertising aesthetics reimagined with a modern twist. It captured the energy of early‑2000s campaigns — the choreography, the music, the attitude — but they updated it for today’s audience in a way that made the ad itself a cultural event. What stood out was how it reminded me of a time when commercials weren’t just background noise, but viral moments that drove conversation and literally brought people into stores. That blend of nostalgia and innovation influences how I want to approach my work in 2026: creating campaigns that feel like cultural drops, remixing legacy aesthetics with modern storytelling, and designing multi‑platform activations that immerse audiences so deeply, they want to step into the brand’s world. It reinforced that the most effective marketing isn’t just about visibility, it’s about memory — and I want my future campaigns to stick in people’s minds the way Gap x Katseye did.”
Kira Mackenzie Jackson, chief brand officer at the activewear brand Set Active:
“I immediately thought of the pup-up Gisou just did for the holidays. Transparently, I’ve never been called to purchase from the brand until I saw this campaign; I think they did a beautiful job of storytelling and gamifying the experience both IRL and digitally. They partnered with an artist to draw the Honey Pups [collectible stuffed accessories that also serve as holders for the brand’s lip products]; documented their creation — which ladders back to this TikTok I made about the importance of proof of the human hand in brand storytelling; and then developed a blind box experience, which was brilliant on the heels of the Labubu Pop Mart craze we saw earlier this year. Given the attention economy, creating truly shareable moments that inspire your community to talk about you and create content about you is key to standing out, and they accomplished just that — during the most crowded season of the year, no less.”