Holiday campaigns are a blood sport. ’Tis the season for joy, sure, but it’s also the moment every brand is fighting for a spot under the tree. For Japanese beauty giant Shiseido, Christmas is the most competitive period for luxury skincare sales. So for Q4 2024, the brand launched a first-to-market campaign aimed at positioning its premium skincare as the ultimate gift for both luxury shoppers and Gen Z consumers in Hong Kong.
This case study explores how Shiseido, with The Trade Desk and Uber Advertising’s Journey Ads, navigated the absence of traditional demographic targeting to reach high-intent shoppers through behavioural and location-based signals.
This case study explores how Shiseido, with The Trade Desk and Uber Advertising’s Journey Ads, navigated the absence of traditional demographic targeting to reach high-intent shoppers through behavioural and location-based signals.
Background and aim
Christmas is a peak shopping period, and Shiseido needed to position its high-end skincare as the ultimate luxury gift. With no access to traditional demographic targeting, the team had to take a creative approach to reach high-intent consumers.
Campaign spoke to Sky Sin, associate director, business development at The Trade Desk to find out why Shiseido became the first beauty brand to partner with Uber Advertising in Hong Kong, with the campaign executed programmatically through The Trade Desk.
"The main objective was to run a programmatic campaign to build brand awareness across Gen Z, who are more digital shoppers. Traditional media struggled to reach and attract them for a long-established cosmetics brand. We proposed using Uber’s solution as a new way to reach this audience since Uber had recently launched their Journey Ads platform in Hong Kong and wanted to be the first to market beauty advertisers there."
December is usually the peak season for Uber rider usage. So, Uber set about trying to match Shiseido’s audience with Uber customers, especially key luxury buyers. The aim was to position Shiseido as a premium skincare product for gift-giving by analysing historical trip data and real-time location data.
Strategy and execution
By tapping into Uber’s behavioural and location-based signals, the campaign effectively reached premium shoppers at times when they were most receptive to discovering luxury products. Real-time data was critical.
"We focused on showing ads to people travelling to high-luxury locations, particularly during key shopping hours from morning to evening," says Andy Hsu, head of Uber Advertising GRCN. "We used geofencing to map shoppers going to Shiseido's pop-up stores or major malls, enabling precise targeting."
Shiseido's pop-up store in Central, Hong Kong was a major focus. Uber’s geofencing matched the longitude and latitude of riders’ destinations with Shiseido’s pop-up store and malls, enabling precise ad targeting.
In addition to real-time location targeting, historical targeting (Uber first-party data) was used to identify and reach luxury shoppers based on their past trip behaviours. Video ads were delivered to these high-value consumers while they were riding with Uber, ensuring maximum attention. To guarantee that relevant ads were shown without disturbing riders, ads were only shown after the rider requested a trip and while they were waiting for the driver.
"Our in-app ads are designed to be non-intrusive. We only show the ads after a rider requests a trip, during the waiting time for the driver, so we don’t disturb their experience," says Hsu. "The ads are relevant, like showing skincare promotions when they’re heading to a mall, increasing engagement without annoyance."
"We also only display one advertiser per trip, allowing Shiseido to tell their full story throughout the journey without competing ads interrupting."
Creative flexibility was also a campaign attribute.
"While this campaign primarily used video ads, which are very effective for holiday luxury shoppers, static ads might sometimes work better depending on client KPIs and product type," says Sin. "We also had the option to optimise mid-campaign for impression exposure or creative elements if necessary."
While some AI optimisations in omnichannel platforms outside Uber were made to dynamically improve the campaign, overall minimal changes were made to the campaign during its run.
"The performance was steady and on pace from start to finish," says Hsu. "We were fortunate that it ran smoothly throughout."
Uber adds that, had improvements been needed, trip volume was something they would watch closely, as they cannot always control it. "For example, during a typhoon in Hong Kong, we expect trip volume to increase since people avoid driving and prefer not to use public transport. In such cases, we could adjust targeting and spend in real time."
Uber also said that creative content could be tailored to audience type and timing: "For instance, people going out later in the evening might respond better to different promotions than those active in the morning. Adjusting creatives accordingly could improve campaign effectiveness."
Challenges
The cosmetics market is very competitive, and, as Shiseido is an established brand, building loyalty and awareness was challenging, prompting the use of newer ad formats in the form of Uber's Journey Ads.
However, Uber does not capture demographic data like gender for privacy reasons. So instead, the team relied heavily on geo-targeting.
"We decided to substitute demographic targeting with destination-based historical geo-targeting, especially fitting given the client’s pop-up store event in Central," said Hsu. "This approach was a challenge but still a good match for reaching the right audience."
A significant hurdle was the inability to measure offline sales effectively through programmatic campaigns, which limited the ability to fully assess in-store impact. However, tracking pixels were installed on Shiseido’s website to understand how many Uber ad viewers visited, registered for workshops, or engaged with the pop-up store. This crucial step helped address the challenge of connecting online ad exposure to offline behaviour.
"For future campaigns, we’d do more offline tracking to better link ad exposure to store visits, perhaps using coupons," says Hsu. "Combining online and offline data will enhance measurement and improve campaign outcomes."
Results
The campaign exceeded expectations, significantly expanding Shiseido’s reach and driving both online and offline engagement.
• Video completion rate: 56.4% (vs. 35% MOAT 2023 benchmark)
• Average video view time: 87 seconds (vs. 30 seconds benchmark)
• Click-through rate: 0.84% (+15% vs APAC average)
• Viewability: 92.4% (above 70% industry benchmark DV 2023)
By leveraging Uber’s audience insights and contextual relevance through TTD’s programmatic capabilities, Shiseido effectively engaged luxury shoppers and fans of skincare products at scale, demonstrating a favourable ROI for the campaign.
"This partnership proved the value of combining online ad targeting with offline shopping behaviour, especially for affluent and Gen Z segments," says Hsu. "Matching a premium brand like Shiseido to our premium riders during the holiday season was very effective."
The campaign only ran for a month, but if done again, The Trade Desk would recommend longer-term Uber campaigns for sustained brand awareness beyond short event bursts.
"We recommend clients use Uber's ad solutions for longer-term brand awareness campaigns rather than short-term bursts," says Sin. "A monthly campaign was driven by event limitations, but this platform works well for sustained marketing efforts, product launches, or pop-up events."
The campaign ran for about one month during the holiday season.
"Events limited the duration, but we see potential for annual campaign use," says Hsu. "For product launches or pop-up events, we recommend spending more budget early to spike awareness, then sustaining it evenly."
