eBay, the global online marketplace, is a pioneer of thoughtful commerce. It strives to
encourage shopping choices that are better for people, their pockets, and the planet.
Within its fashion category, one of eBay’s core objectives is to inspire consumers to swap
fast fashion for pre-loved.
And what better way to disrupt the norm and spark a movement towards a more conscious
way of shopping than by partnering with hit dating series Love Island; breaking up the
show’s long standing relationship with fast fashion brands, and influencing audiences to buy
pre-loved, planet-friendly items instead.

After successfully bringing eBay’s first Love Island campaign to life across digital and social
channels for season 8, DEPT® was promoted to lead creative agency for season 9; gaining
the the ability to influence both ATL and digital channels.
We were responsible for developing a brand new strategy, fresh creative concept and art
direction that we’d bring to life via a through-the-line (TTL) campaign, promoting eBay as the
official pre-loved fashion partner of Love Island.
The campaign objective was simple: to increase top-of-mind awareness for eBay and pre-
loved fashion. And we did just that, generating 217 million impressions across social
channels, 1,400% more searches for ‘pre-loved fashion’ on its site and a 24% increase in
new circular businesses joining the marketplace compared to series 8. Here’s how.
Strategy overview
Social media was the cornerstone of our campaign strategy, which was rooted in insight of
the behaviours of viewers when watching the show.
From our experience working on the season 8 partnership, we understood that Love Island
fans consume the show via a dual-screen experience, switching straight to social platforms
during ad breaks and in between shows to debrief and watch creator content on the series.
We discovered that there were as many, if not more, people watching content on TikTok
about the show than watching the live show itself.
To capitalise on this, we knew our campaign needed to make a stronger connection between
the big and small screen. So we conceptualised the ‘Stylanders’, a collective of influencers,
creators and commentators who’d risen to fame talking about the show. They would serve
as the voice of eBay throughout the series, allowing the brand to make pre-loved fashion a
significant part of the Love Island conversation in the most authentic and relevant way
possible.
With a combined following of more than 1.5 million across TikTok and Instagram, our
Stylanders comprised Tasha Ghouri (eBay Ambassador and previous Love Island
contestant), Sarel Madziya (@cocosarel), Jilly Cross (@jillyisabella) and Crispin Ngenda
(@crispinion).
We flipped the script. Rather than simply using social media as a channel to deliver our
message, we put social creators front and centre of every channel of our TTL campaign,
including TV, VOD, digital, social, and the dedicated Love Island app.
As eBay is on a mission to debunk how people see secondhand clothing as too niche or
‘used’, we put a focus on showcasing the vast range of quality, on-trend, pre-loved items
available on its platform. The Stylanders wore and talked about pre-loved clothing at every
opportunity, helping eBay to become an authority voice on circular fashion and normalising
pre-loved purchasing.
The Stylanders were the focal point of the TV and VOD commercials which formed the core
of the campaign, making an immediate connection with social at the broadest level. In the
two days we had on set, we captured all footage for the idents as well as a suite of social
content that would serve as our creative bank around the season launch, and be the
backbone of our social strategy throughout the series.

Social specific
Taking our season 8 learnings into consideration, we revised our social platform mix and
content approach ahead of launching the season 9 campaign.
Instagram and TikTok were our primary social channels, being where we previously saw
most engagement and where the Stylanders were most known, supported by Facebook,
Snap and Twitter.
We built a fast and agile content machine to optimise every piece of footage from our
Stylander shoot for the different platforms that we’d be sharing content across. To avoid
creative fatigue, we also produced a suite of reactive, platform-specific asset templates that
enabled us to speedily create content around what was happening in the show in real time
and that leaned into platform trends, allowing us to capitalise on key moments throughout
the series.
To keep up momentum and continually re-stock our creative bank throughout the series, we
were also at the villa to capture fresh, BTS content that showcased how the islanders
themselves were ‘coupling up with pre-loved’ after choosing items from a shared wardrobe
stocked with eBay finds.
Our community managers took control of eBay’s socials to drive awareness of the
partnership through paid and organic channels, sharing and reacting to moments on behalf
of the brand. We utilised content from the show, our Stylanders, and other influencers to
maximise engagement across channels.
Couple goals
Our social-first campaign concept, strategy and delivery cemented eBay and Love Island as
a match made in heaven. Our Stylander concept accelerated results, with their posts seeing
significantly higher reach and helping to engage audiences outside of eBay’s existing
following.
This resulted in increased results across the board compared with season 8, despite the
season 9 winter series drawing in a smaller viewership than the previous summer show.
217 million total impressions - +85%
948k link clicks - +25%
76k organic engagements - +230%
11.3k new followers - +19%
1,400% increase in eBay searches for ‘pre-loved fashion’
24% increase in circular businesses joining the marketplace
Despite an overall decrease in organic posting frequency (after shifting focus away from
Twitter within our platform review), we almost doubled our engagement rate from 0.8% to
1.4% for season 9.
Instagram was the best performing organic channel when it came to impressions, with
assets that felt native to the app, like islander outfit carousels and Stylander reels, driving the
strongest results. Our focus on reactively leaning into platform-specific trends is what also

made TikTok the best performing channel in terms of engagement, with some TikTok
content gaining +5x more views than Love Island averages.
Across paid activity, TikTok drove a significant 11.4% uplift in ad recall and +3.9% in brand
association. Meta was key in driving traffic to the website and shifting buying intent, which
increased +3.4pts, and Snapchat was a key platform for reaching Gen Z; with islander-
centric content and our use of the show’s recognisable music to generating 2.2 million
impressions.
All of this supported a 1,400% increase in ‘pre-loved fashion’ searches on eBay’s site
compared to season 8, as well as a 24% rise in new circular businesses joining the online
marketplace.
The campaign overall drove consideration amongst those aware of the eBay and Love
Island partnership, with 70% of online shoppers likely to consider choosing eBay when
buying pre-loved fashion, compared with only 58% of those not aware of the partnership,
according to a Kantar study. In addition, while only 25% of online shoppers unaware of the
partnership are likely to buy pre-loved, 60% of those who were aware are more likely to do
so.
Making eBay and pre-loved fashion a significant part of the Love Island conversation in the
most authentic and relevant way helped to build trust and credibility for the brand, driving
awareness overall while also driving growth of its fashion category.
Spark a movement to a more conscious way of shopping? Mission accomplished.