As we charge into 2025, full of forward momentum, we are taking a moment to reflect on our retail events of Xmas 2024, and what they can tell us about how customers connect with luxury brands and vice versa.
We delivered 237 in-store events for brands in November and December 2024, which was a whirlwind even for us!* In the course of these, we met thousands of customers and learned a whole lot about trends in in-store events and what customers value.
Our three biggest takeaways from the season were:
Luxury brands are investing in artist collaborations and confidently building customer campaigns around them.
Campaigns are layered, offering customers multiple opportunities to connect in a single season.
Customers are loving seeing something a bit extra in store.
Artist collabs – creating super cool talking points and must have products.
Brands have done the groundwork to get customers to understand and value artist collaborations, and are now working hard to cement customer loyalty via interesting and innovative creativity. The artwork creates a link between what customers are seeing online, and then touching in store.
The customers we met in store were excited to own a piece of the creativity they’d first seen online. They also wanted something completely unique for them, which feels like an antidote to mass-production.
Another important factor is that artist collabs allow brands to stand out from the crowd with instantly recognisable imagery that can be more playful than the main brand identity.
We were told late last year that 96% of fragrance purchases are still made in a physical store. This seems high to us, but even so physical sales clearly remain massively important for fragrance brands. The brands are coming up with ever more compelling reasons to walk into a store, and customers are savvy to the idea that they’ll get a one-off experience by visiting in person.
Diptyque is the Daddy of artist collabs and this year was no exception. The brand's collaboration with textile artist Lucy Sparrow, including a shoppable art exhibition in their Regent Street Maison created a huge buzz for the season. We implemented events using personalised felt baubles and felt gift tags which echoed the artwork on display. The artwork really resonated with the customers we met, and they talked about coming back to experience all the events.
Guerlain collaborated with jewellery designer Shourouk Rhaiem to create the most covetable packaging of the season! Her art features bold use of rhinestone crystals and her pieces for Guerlain were instant sell-throughs. To underline the collab, Guerlain featured rhinestone artistry in their instore activations. The customers absolutely loved the echoes of the bigger campaign and the events were incredibly busy.
Layered campaigns, new reasons to talk to customers multiple times per season
Instead of animating each store once in the season with an event, we saw brands invest in multiple activities in key stores. These were supported by online events and influencer product placement which all reinforced each other to create a bigger impact.
Although we all know some people who have their shopping done by October and others who always panic buy on Christmas Eve, most of us fall somewhere in the middle and the brands schedule their activations accordingly.
Timing for layered campaigns at Peak - what we’ve seen on the ground
Early November is a time for events that give people reasons to buy early.
Seeing an event in a store gets customers thinking about which gifts they can tick off their list and knowing that their item can be personalised gives a reason to buy now.
Knowing an artist collab is time-limited is another good reason to buy early.
Self-purchase is big at this time – give a reason to buy now and use the item all season.
Online workshops get customers in the Christmas spirit and then they can redeem the ticket price against a future purchase.
The second half of November is a time that customers consolidate their Christmas shopping, and events are often about giving customers a reason to shop with that brand rather than its competitors.
If I buy two gifts here, I get a little personalised gift-with-purchase for me, so I’ll buy at this store.
I’m buying my husband’s main gift here, and I’m choosing this because I can get it engraved to make it extra special.
Luxe brands will often avoid discounting for Black Friday but will take advantage of the increased footfall by offering something extra in store.
December is the time that customers are finishing up their Christmas shopping, often visiting the shops for the festive atmosphere.
Personalisations have to be quick to execute because stores are packed and people can be in more of a hurry.
Even if their shopping is ‘finished’ they might be excited to buy an extra gift that is personal to the recipient, or is part of a collab they’ve discussed together, or is a fun new spin on their recipient’s favourite.
In-store workshops for super-fan customers allow them to fully immerse themselves in the festive experience.
Many brands were catching these stages with different offers for the customer, to keep them engaged through the season.
Jo Malone London customers had many opportunities to connect this season, with an events series that hit all the main moments of the season. Activations included Christmas card illustration, engraving of gifts, and customer workshops. Fans of the brand had multiple reasons to visit and buy beautiful gifts made extra special on the day.
Diptyque built a variety of events with us across the season, including the felt activations mentioned above, personalisation of hand blown glass baubles, customer creative workshops, engraving and calligraphy. The customers are incredibly loyal and store our artists were able to say 'see you at the next event in this store on X date'.
Joyful creativity
More than ever this season clients came to us with briefs that brought the festive joy with unusual techniques and fun ideas that will stick in customers’ memories long after they’ve left the store. We often find that the most left-field requests push us to try new things and create new processes that fit the commercial criteria of the brands.
Lavazza had the idea to have messages written using their coffee in the flagship café and event space in Soho. Customers buying gift packs of coffee could have a message written in calligraphy using strong coffee – an excellent complement to the product and a brilliant conversation point when the customer gives the gift.
We saw the new limited edition marbled packaging for Molton Brown products and immediately knew we could create some in-store theatre that tied in beautifully with the visuals. We had never done it before but experimented with marbling processes until we came up with an proposal that fit our criteria – it was beautiful, it complemented the existing creative, it worked on the glass fragrance bottles and candle jars, it could be created in store safely and with a minimum of mess, the process took under 10 minutes including drying time, we could brief artists to create a consistent result in multiple locations.
For Russell and Bromley we created window art with on-site performances where our artists worked live in the window spaces of key stores during some of the busiest shopping days of the year. The artists also personalised items for customers, then the art remained in the windows for the rest of the season.
At La Mer, the Attendant character appeared in advertising and point of sale. This year he arrived on a steam train, and we worked on the the creative for the influencer list, and the in-store execution. We had such fun bringing the attendant to life, and customers loved the whimsical festive touch.
Leather work with Radley, All Saints and Coach
Brands that sell primarily leather products have reached out to us to personalise leather items in new ways. Painting on leather is nothing new, but creating intricate, durable artwork in a short timescale (target around 10 mins per item in store) while the customer watches is an ambitious set of parameters that we loved taking on!
Having tried all the products on the market, we found that leather pens and paints took too long to dry/cure to be practical in a retail environment. This pushed us to mix our own inks and paints for leather that incorporate the varnish element into the paint. We created fast-flow inks that could be used with a calligraphy pen, allowing a much finer detail result and quicker dry-time.
At the end of this hectic and fulfilling season, all that remains is to say a heartfelt THANK YOU to our incredible team of artists. We work with 160+ artists across the UK and Ireland, and their passion and creativity smash it out of the park every time. We couldn't do it without you!
If you've been inspired to work with us, we'd love to hear from you. We are always looking for new creative projects so drop us a line at jill@themoderncalligraphyco.com and we'll get in touch.
*237 events is the number of times we met customers face to face in a store. This number excludes private workshops, influencer events, corporate Christmas parties etc.
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