Dive Brief:
- Fossil’s Q4 2025 holiday campaign earned 58.8 million impressions, surpassing the initial goal of 14.7 million by nearly 400% thanks to a multichannel strategy aimed at holiday travelers, according to information shared with Marketing Dive.
- Working in partnership with ad-tech company Digital Culture Group, free ad-supported streaming TV network ReachTV and media agency Assembly, the watchmaker activated in six airports, in-flight Wi-Fi on JetBlue and American Airlines and on mobile.
- The campaign leveraged a captive airport audience to take advantage of the heightened emotionality of holiday gift-giving. Additionally, the campaign sought to use AI to inform decision making and expand audience understanding.
Dive Insight:
Fossil’s 2025 holiday campaign used Digital Culture Group’s artificial intelligence-powered Audience Resonance Index to identify three traveler profiles: Tech-savvy watch enthusiasts, shoppers with a household income of $75,000 or higher looking for premium items and fashion-forward millennials who are likely to engage in gift-giving.
"During the most competitive retail window of the year, we helped Fossil break through by meeting style-conscious holiday travelers at moments of peak attention, when time, intent and mindset aligned," said Lynnwood Bibbens, founder and executive chairman of ReachTV, in press materials.
AI is slowly working its way into nearly every aspect of the advertising industry, including audience targeting. The technology promises greater efficiency and accuracy, however, concerns around measurement, accuracy and accountability remain.
Creative was delivered across multiple channels at LaGuardia Airport in New York and other travel hubs inDallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago. The watchmaker was featured in ReachTV’s “Airport Fits” franchise, which delivered 45.5 million TV impressions, plus 87,000 social views and 6,200 interactions on the brand’s Instagram and TikTok. In-stream airport videos during NBA games accounted for 9.1 million impressions. Mobile retargeting of travelers exposed to ReachTV ads accrued 8,089 clicks and 3.77 million impressions.
In-flight Wi-Fi pre-roll had a click-through rate of over 50%, which directed consumers to a virtual pop-up shop.
Fossil has experimented with AI-integrated advertising in the past. The brand was able to generate a 57% lift in recall and 10% increase in awareness for a recent “Big Tic” campaign using InMobi’s full-funnel solution.
Fossil Group, which also owns Michele, posted Q1 sales of $224.8 million, down 3.6% year over year, according to an earnings release. CEO and Director Franco Fogliato said agentic AI was of particular interest to the company, including in its marketing efforts, during an earnings call.
