About
Heading into Q4, johnnie-O—a men’s and boys’ apparel brand—was falling short of its annual revenue targets across both digital and retail channels. While the holiday season typically provides a lift, it was clear that discounts and Cyber Week promotions alone wouldn’t be enough to close the gap between prior expectations and performance.
OuterBox partnered with johnnie-O to build a coordinated cross-channel strategy designed to drive demand throughout the full holiday period and reach revenue goals.
Challenge
The holiday season can be a sales boon, but it’s also the most competitive digital marketing period of the year. Because johnnie-O entered Q4 behind its revenue targets, it had to make up ground while maintaining ad cost efficiency. Relying on typical seasonal trends—or a short window of promotional activity—was unlikely to be enough.
The brand needed a more deliberate approach: one that extended beyond isolated campaigns and instead coordinated efforts across channels, messaging, and timing to drive consistent performance throughout the quarter.
The Strategy
OuterBox developed a cross-channel plan spanning the full holiday season, outlining campaign structure, audience targeting, creative updates, and budget allocation across key moments.
In paid social, campaigns were used to build demand ahead of peak periods and support promotional moments as they happened. Messaging and creative were aligned with the broader campaign calendar, helping maintain visibility as shoppers moved from discovery to purchase.
With paid search, the focus was on capturing that seasonal demand more effectively. This included expanding non-brand keyword coverage to align with holiday shopping behavior, introducing new search terms tied to gifting and promotions, and updating ad copy to reflect seasonal intent. Performance Max campaigns were further segmented to improve control and visibility during high-traffic periods, and promotional tactics like strikethrough pricing were used during key sale windows to drive engagement.
Across both channels, the strategy mapped how spend and messaging would shift over time—ensuring the brand remained present not just during Cyber Week, but throughout the full holiday shopping window.
14.9%
Increase in Return on Ad Spend YoY
21%
Increase in Revenu YoY
✓
Revenue Goals Achieved During Holiday Season
The Results
Making Paid Media Channels Work Together
Holiday performance often comes down to timing, coordination, and consistency—not just short bursts of promotional activity.
In this case, aligning paid search and paid social around a shared campaign calendar allowed demand generation and demand capture to work together. Paid social helped maintain visibility and build interest ahead of key moments, while paid search ensured the brand was present when that interest translated into active shopping behavior.
Importantly, the strategy extended beyond Cyber Week. By planning for the full holiday window, the campaign avoided over-reliance on a single peak period and instead created multiple opportunities to drive revenue. By aligning campaigns across paid search and paid social, brands can sustain performance beyond peak promotional periods and capture demand more consistently throughout the holiday season.
Thinking Beyond the Holidays
Holiday campaigns tend to surface what actually drives performance: what messaging resonates, how audiences respond, and where spend is most effective when competition is at its peak. But those learnings don’t have to be constrained to Q4.
The opportunity is to carry that clarity forward. Following the success of this effort, johnnie-O committed to a closer alignment between its paid search and paid social advertising going forward. Applying your learnings from in the most demanding marketing period of the year can help build a more consistent, efficient approach to growth throughout the rest of the year.
