Turning the table on our Advertising Judge Mary Soroka

2024 Applied Arts Advertising Awards juror Mary Soroka, Global Vice President and Creative Director at Edelman New York is an internationally award-winning creative whose campaigns have earned extensive media coverage.  Applied Arts was curious to know which 2024 Edelman campaign was her fav.

What were some unique features of the campaign?

Working closely with our client eBay, Pre-Loved Fashion Week was the first all-pre-loved shoppable runway show at both New York and London Fashion Week. In partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and British Fashion Council (BFC), the runway shows and online collections showcased the nearly endless selection of pre-owned authentic designer clothing and accessories available on eBay and made them immediately shoppable via eBay Live.

Over 10k viewers tuned in to the livestream, bringing circular fashion to the global stage and the daily drops of curated pre-owned designer items illustrated to a new generation of fashion lovers that high-end fashion doesn’t have to be out of reach. 

What were the success stats or indicators?

With media impressions hitting over 4 billion globally, we were blown away by the positive response to the campaign. We were able to reach not only iconic fashion publications like Vogue and ELLE, but also publications that represent a new demographic, like Teen Vogue and Refinery29. Partnering with relevant talents like stylist and creator Wisdom Kaye also helped to increase our visibility with key target demographics – like Gen Z – with the collaborative reel on Instagram with Wisdom driving the strongest awareness of all social assets (753.2K impressions out of 1.2MM total social impressions).

Nearly $50 billion worth of secondhand luxury products were sold worldwide in 2023, fuelled in particular by younger consumers looking for accessible entry points into the traditionally exclusive luxury market and this campaign helped us reach that exact demographic. 

One of eBay’s goals is to make it as easy as possible for brands, buyers, and sellers to engage in the circular fashion economy and this campaign illustrated how shoppers can do that by shopping pre-loved on the marketplace.

Can you give us some "peeks" behind-the-scenes?

Our NYFW curator, Gen-Z style icon Wisdom Kaye, was entirely hands-on from start to finish. He played a crucial supporting role alongside our Edelman and eBay teams and his passion for the project helped bring together a cohesive vision for the looks on the runway. Wisdom pulled marquee pre-loved pieces directly from eBay to represent the wide range of designers featured over the course of the NYFW and filled out the looks with other pieces and accessories from the platform. Each look was authentic to him and his creativity, and it was a natural partnership that brought the campaign to a whole new level.

Why is this particular project a fave?

I love purpose-driven creative projects. I enjoyed working on this campaign with eBay because it put the brand in a position where they could engage in an important movement in a genuine way, inspired by how people were already authentically engaging with their platform. As someone who worked for many years in Advertising and then transitioned into PR, I believe that companies today are required to lead with sincerity in order to sustain meaningful relationships with the public. It requires that they listen to the world, and do right by it.

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 Doing it right, stellar campaign team Edelman!