This week, we take a look at how the Canadian footwear brand Aldo, in the midst of a comeback after its bankruptcy five years ago, is leaning on user-generated content to continue its growth.
The Canadian footwear giant Aldo is in the midst of a transformation. From going bankrupt in 2020 to being profitable with over $1 billion in revenue last year, the brand has made a significant comeback under its original ownership by cutting costs in its retail footprint, relocating offices, spending less on IT, for example, and striking new licensing deals with the likes of Authentic Brands Group.
Now, Aldo is leaning into what’s working — including viral TikTok campaigns and a heavy reliance on user-generated content — as it repositions the brand’s marketing strategy.
On Thursday, Aldo is revealing a new campaign it’s calling “Try Every Thing,” led by the brand’s chief brand and product officer, Daianara Grullon Amalfitano, and its vp of global brand strategy, PR and social media, Amanda Amar. The campaign cuts across all of Aldo’s business, including its more than 1,200 stores in 100 countries — but the meat of it is focused on social media. Aldo is making use of in-house high-level campaign videos directed by filmmaker Stefanie Soho, as well as user-generated content through a “Branded Mission” on TikTok.
TikTok’s Branded Mission solution lets brands put out a call to action for video content from users and then pay to elevate the best ones into ads on TikTok. The feature has more commonly been used by beauty brands than fashion. Lancôme ran a Branded Mission last year and received 10,000 user submissions and 82 million views across all the content, and brands like L’Oréal, Cetaphil and Sedal have seen similar success.
“The Branded Mission and TikTok is a big chunk of our marketing spend,” said Amar. “But we see these Branded Missions as truly valuable. Inherently TikTok is about trying things — a new makeup routine, a new style. The mission is a good way to activate all tiers of content creators, not just the ones with the biggest, shiniest number of followers.”
TikTok’s Branded Missions are relatively new, only launching in late 2023, but they have increasingly become a popular solution for brands. Powerade just launched a Branded Mission in July, as did Macy’s with a back-to-school-focused Mission launched on July 21. TikTok is still ostensibly set to be banned in the U.S., although President Trump has continually signed executive orders extending the deadline for TikTok to change its ownership structure. The new deadline is September 17, though there has been little concrete movement or indication that any structural changes at TikTok are actually happening.
Amar said Aldo’s version of the TikTok Branded Mission is launching in six countries, the largest launch for any Branded Mission on TikTok. Users are encouraged to send in videos of themselves trying something new — whether that’s a new food, a new skill or a new look — with the best ones being elevated into TikTok ads. Four users will also receive a cash award of $5,000 each, as well.
TikTok has already been a useful platform for Aldo. The brand has more than a quarter of a million followers on TikTok, and its first social campaign on the platform, the dance-centric video series Step Into Love, earned more than 6 billion impressions for Aldo in 2021. On Instagram, where Aldo has over 4 million followers, the brand wiped its feed totally clean in the lead-up to the campaign’s launch, leaving only a grid of nine posts forming an image that teased the campaign.
The decision to center the campaign on a Branded Mission makes Aldo’s target audience clear. Gen Z tends to be the biggest consumers of Branded Mission content. The aforementioned Lancome mission saw 60% of its engagement from Gen-Z users, for example. The Try Every Thing campaign specifically targets people under 30, as that’s the time in life to try things, Amalfitano said.
But notably, brands are spending less on advertising. Glossy’s own research from June found that nearly 70% of surveyed fashion and beauty brands are cutting back on ad spending. Amid tariffs and market uncertainties, many are playing the waiting game, putting off campaigns and other big bets until the market stabilizes again. But TikTok ads, and particularly Branded Missions, which rely heavily on user-generated content, tend to be more efficient, with lower costs-per-mille rates than other platforms like Instagram. A TikTok Branded Mission typically costs between $50,000 and $150,000, depending on the scale.
“In this landscape, everyone is watching dollars and cents,” Amar said. “For us, it’s about rejigging priorities. We’re not necessarily working with more ad dollars. From a marketing perspective, we’re just re-prioritizing what we spend on.”
Executive moves
- The biggest story in fashion leadership this week is undeniably the announcement of Chloe Malle as the successor to Anna Wintour as the new head of editorial content at U.S. Vogue. Malle’s appointment had been speculated for weeks before it was announced. She takes over the new role immediately and has already made public statements about how she hopes to run the business. Notably, Malle’s leadership will likely see fewer print issues of Vogue published each year, with each one being bigger and more cohesively tied to a theme. She also plans to expand wedding coverage and continue releasing new projects like Dogue, the pet-themed Vogue cover contest she created in 2024.
- In other big shake-ups, Proenza Schouler finally has a new creative director after founders Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough left earlier this year to become the new designers of Loewe. In their place, the brand announced Rachel Scott. Scott will show her first collection with the brand next year in February.
News to know
- While the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle campaign had only a minimal impact on the brand’s earnings, due to it launching a week before the fiscal quarter ended, American Eagle seems pleased with the results. Despite the controversy around the ad, CEO Jay Schottenstein counted it as a win during the brand’s earnings call this week.
- MyTheresa is reportedly laying off up to 700 people from Yoox Net-a-Porter after acquiring the company late last year. The layoffs are part of the ongoing integration process as MyTheresa seeks to build a unified luxury e-commerce business.
- A new survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers released this week shows that U.S. consumers are planning to spend around 5% less this holiday season than in previous years. It’s the steepest drop-off the company has seen since the Covid pandemic.
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