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The BFCM Index: three years of Black Friday performance, broken down by channel.

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Lioness

ACQUISITION + CREATIVE · TREND-LED CONTEMPORARY FASHION

Lioness

Trend-led fashion scaled through relentless creative cadence

Peak after peak

Black Friday performance

Acquisition health

New customer mix

Weekly cadence held

Range launch rhythm

Multi-year

Partnership length

EngagementMulti-year partnership
IndustryFashion
DisciplinesPaid Social, Paid Search, Creative Strategy, Range Launch Cadence, Peak Period Planning, New Customer Acquisition

Channel performance

Where the spend actually moved.

Paid Social

Step-change

Range launch efficiency

Paid Search

Exceeded prior peaks

Peak-period performance

Creative

Gains that build each week

Production velocity

Overview

Trend-led fashion lives or dies on tempo. The brand drops new ranges weekly, runs hype moments inside its release calendar, and expects paid media to keep pace without sacrificing efficiency. The partnership has spanned multiple years and every major peak period, settling into a rhythm where creative, acquisition and merchandising signals move together. The work has been less about a single hero campaign and more about building a launch cadence that keeps paying off.

THE CHALLENGE

Trend-led fashion brands face a particular kind of operating tension. New range every week. Demand spikes that arrive on a calendar nobody else sees. A customer base that recognises the brand by what dropped on Friday, not by a permanent hero product. The acquisition engine has to absorb that pace without flattening the brand into a discount story.

When the partnership began, the brand was already picking up pace, but the channel mix was not tuned for the cadence the business actually ran on. Paid social was treating every launch like a one-off rather than a rolling sequence. Creative was being produced fast but not learning fast. Peak periods like Black Friday and Easter were being planned as events instead of as the natural acceleration of an already-weekly rhythm.

The brief evolved into something broader than a typical performance retainer. It meant building an acquisition system that respects the launch calendar, treating creative as an asset that keeps paying off rather than a cost that resets, and lifting spend through peak windows without losing the new-customer ratio that makes the rest of the year work.

Lioness — case study photography

THE APPROACH

How the engagement was structured.

We rebuilt the paid media operation around the brand's release cadence rather than against it. Range launches got their own ads architecture: a recurring template that absorbed new product without needing to be rebuilt every Friday. Hype moments inside the calendar were treated as planned demand surges, with creative and budget posture shifting in the days around each drop rather than reacting after the fact.

Creative velocity became the central lever. Briefs moved from one-at-a-time to a rolling production model that fed paid social with the format diversity the platforms now reward. Short-form video, static, and motion-led formats were tested in parallel on every meaningful drop, with the winners promoted into evergreen prospecting and the losers retired without ceremony. The point was less about any single hook and more about keeping the top of the funnel fed with fresh signals every week.

Peak periods were planned as a sequence rather than a single moment. Black Friday strategy ran on the assumption that the brand's regular cadence had already trained the audience. The job in November was to lean into a system that already worked, not invent a new one. Easter and seasonal Google briefs followed the same logic on the paid search side, with prospecting and brand-defence budgets shifting in step with the merchandising calendar.

Across all of it, the acquisition mix was kept honest against new-customer contribution. Range Ads cadence, Hype Ads, and the broader prospecting layer were measured on whether they were bringing in first-time buyers, not just clearing inventory.

LIONESS · IN THE ROOM

Inside the engagement.

The working moments behind the numbers.

Model in a grey and white striped co-ord leans out of an open townhouse doorway onto a London street
Model in a blue plaid halter top and matching midi skirt poses on brownstone steps with a chain-strap quilted bag
Model in a black denim jacket and flared jeans sits on travertine steps holding an iced coffee, quilted bag on her shoulder
Model in a pale pink zip-up jacket and shorts set leans against a parked car inside a concrete parking garage
Model in a burgundy windbreaker and blue plaid shorts stands on a sunlit street corner beside a bike rack
Model in a black crochet-lace halter top and midi skirt stands on concrete stairs holding a black leather bag
Model in a grey and white striped co-ord leans out of an open townhouse doorway onto a London street
Model in a blue plaid halter top and matching midi skirt poses on brownstone steps with a chain-strap quilted bag
Model in a black denim jacket and flared jeans sits on travertine steps holding an iced coffee, quilted bag on her shoulder
Model in a pale pink zip-up jacket and shorts set leans against a parked car inside a concrete parking garage
Model in a burgundy windbreaker and blue plaid shorts stands on a sunlit street corner beside a bike rack
Model in a black crochet-lace halter top and midi skirt stands on concrete stairs holding a black leather bag
Model in a grey and white striped co-ord leans out of an open townhouse doorway onto a London street
Model in a blue plaid halter top and matching midi skirt poses on brownstone steps with a chain-strap quilted bag
Model in a black denim jacket and flared jeans sits on travertine steps holding an iced coffee, quilted bag on her shoulder
Model in a pale pink zip-up jacket and shorts set leans against a parked car inside a concrete parking garage
Model in a burgundy windbreaker and blue plaid shorts stands on a sunlit street corner beside a bike rack
Model in a black crochet-lace halter top and midi skirt stands on concrete stairs holding a black leather bag

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Lioness — case study photography

THE OUTCOME

Peak periods now outperform their prior comparables on a consistent basis, with Black Friday windows pushing spend meaningfully higher while holding the acquisition efficiency the rest of the year depends on. Range launches land with predictable lift rather than week-to-week volatility, and the creative pipeline produces enough format diversity to keep prospecting fresh through every season.

New customer acquisition has stayed front-of-mind across the engagement. The paid social and paid search mix has been tuned to feed the top of the funnel even as the brand has matured, avoiding the drift toward retention-heavy spend that hollows out trend-led businesses over time.

What started as a performance retainer has settled into something closer to an operating partnership. The team now spans multiple years and multiple peak periods, carrying the kind of institutional knowledge that only builds up when the same crew has lived through every BFCM, every range launch, and every quiet July.

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50+brands
$750M+GMV
10+years