Be Thrift Proud®.
Campaign Overview
Client: Savers / Value Village
Industry: Thrift / Retail
Campaign Focus: Rebrand, Awareness, Evergreen Content, Engagement
Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Meta Ads (AllowListing)
Content Type: Evergreen UGC, DIYs, Thrift Flips, Trend Content, Key Moments, Carousels
📝
Savers came to us with a clear goal: show up differently. Over 2022 and 2023, we helped them pull off a full-scale glow-up—reintroducing the brand to Gen Z and younger millennials while building a content engine that wouldn’t quit. The first year was all about the pivot: awareness, brand lift, and planting their sustainability flag. Year two? We doubled down on high-performing UGC and catalog-ready content that fed their always-on strategy across organic and paid. This wasn’t just a campaign. It was a brand overhaul—with receipts.
Creative Concept
The big idea? Thrift, but make it culture. The Shelf’s creative strategy leaned hard into thrift as a lifestyle—one built around individuality, sustainability, and self-expression. In 2022, we brought Savers into the scroll with content that matched the energy of its audience: DIYs that felt like side quests, thrift flips with real creative payoff, and upcycled furniture that turned home projects into personality statements. We paired that with storytelling moments that hit during cultural tentpoles like Earth Month and National Thrift Shop Day. It wasn’t just content—it was a vibe shift.
By 2023, we’d built a full-blown content engine. Influencers weren’t just posting—they were styling, hauling, curating, transforming. From fashion to home decor, creators turned everyday thrift finds into aesthetic inspiration, delivering a steady stream of evergreen, high-ROI assets across Reels, TikTok, YouTube, and more. The mood was confident, creative, and never overly polished—just authentic enough to spark engagement, and just aspirational enough to move product. Whether it was “style my thrifted blazer 3 ways” or a viral Halloween DIY, the content stayed rooted in real life, with shelf life.
Goals & Target Audience
Goals
Reposition Savers/Value Village for Gen Z and millennials, increase brand favorability, and build a content engine designed to scale. The 2022 campaign focused on awareness—building reach, sentiment, and cultural relevance through creator-led storytelling. By 2023, the strategy evolved to support a content-forward system built for always-on marketing: evergreen assets, high performance in paid, and year-round allowlisting support.
Target Audience
The campaign was designed to reach Gen Z and millennial shoppers aged 18–35 across the U.S. and Canada, with a strong female skew (≈80%). These audiences were socially and environmentally conscious, with an interest in thrift as self-expression. Fashion, home decor, and upcycling were key entry points—especially through TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, where thrift flips, try-ons, and styling challenges dominated engagement patterns.
Strategy & Creator Activation
In 2022, the strategy prioritized cultural momentum and high-visibility creators in lifestyle, fashion, and DIY. In 2023, it shifted to a content engine model—prioritizing creators who could deliver evergreen, high-performance content that could be allowlisted, repurposed, and scaled. Creator tiers were selected by market (mids for U.S., micros for Canada) and content type (Reels vs Carousels).
Creator Activation
Creators were tasked with capturing the full thrift experience, including in-store footage, styling content, home decor flips, and DIY tutorials.
Content was built around high-performing concepts like Thrift With Me, Thrift Flip, Sustainable Staples, and Iconic Red Carts. Deliverables leaned heavily into short-form video, with Reels, TikToks, and carousels prioritized for performance and reuse. Key moments like National Thrift Shop Day, Earth Month, and Halloween served as thematic anchors without locking content into one-time-only windows.
Post Types
TikTok
Videos
In-Feed Posts
Stories
YouTube
Videos
Performance Results & Key Metrics
Savers’ foray into influencer marketing wasn’t just a campaign—it was a rebrand in motion. Across 2022 and 2023, strategic influencer activations became the engine behind the brand’s “Be Thrift Proud®” message—fusing sustainability, creativity, and style into content that didn’t just resonate… it performed.
Over the two-year period, influencer-led content delivered more than 93 million impressions, driving cultural visibility while laying the groundwork for long-term brand momentum. But performance wasn’t limited to reach—these campaigns consistently turned attention into action.
In 2023, Instagram and TikTok engagement rates soared—topping 11% during key cultural moments like Halloween and National Thrift Shop Day. These weren’t one-off spikes—they were deliberate tentpole strategies that activated creators and their communities.
Evergreen content sustained that momentum with engagement rates 83% above industry benchmarks, proving that thrift storytelling has legs beyond the seasonal calendar—and value beyond the feed.
Creators delivered more than 2,600 unique content assets across both years, transforming thrift hauls and DIY challenges into a full-scale media library. One thrift flip alone drove 10 million+ organic views, turning creativity into scroll-stopping ROI.
CPMs averaged $1.84 (35% below industry average), and engagement rates hit 16.9%, outperforming even aggressive performance benchmarks.
Together, these campaigns helped Savers build a modular content system fueled by IGC, UGC, and performance-ready creative. What started as a brand awareness push became a full-fledged brand transformation—one powered by culture, content, and community.
📊 Performance Overview
📣 Total Reach & Impressions (2022–2023)
- 93M+ total impressions across organic and paid
- 53M in 2022 (16.4M organic, 36.5M paid)
- 40.4M in 2023 (5.3M organic, 35.1M paid)
💬 Engagement & Video Views
- 7.8M+ total engagements across both years
- 5.9M paid engagements in 2023 (16.9% ER)
- 12.5M+ organic Reels views in 2022
- 2.8M+ total video views in 2023
🎯 Paid Performance (2023)
- $1.84 avg. CPM (35% below industry avg)
- 16.9% engagement rate (vs 2.58% benchmark)
- 0.27% CTR (vs 0.04% industry benchmark)
📸 Content Creation & Asset Volume
- 2,646 total content assets across both years
- 180 creators activated in 2022, 133 in 2023
- High-performing concepts: Thrift Flip, NTSD, Moodboard Styling, Thrifted Halloween
📱 Platform Insights
- Instagram Reels + Carousels delivered highest engagement — Carousels reached up to 16.79% ER
- TikTok delivered cultural virality — led key moments like NTSD and thrift hauls
- Creators with DIY, fashion, and home decor niches saw strongest reuse value
- Paid performance spiked during cultural tentpoles — especially Halloween and Earth Month
Influencer Highlights
Marissa Zingg (@marissazingg)
Platform: Instagram
Top Post: National Thrift Shop Day Reel
Performance: Delivered 10M+ organic views on a single Reel in 2022
Impact: Created one of the highest-performing pieces of organic content across the campaign, demonstrating the viral power of culturally timed creative .
Beth of @bjonesstyle
Beth brought the “What I Thrifted vs. How I Styled It” concept to life with a relatable flair that resonated on Instagram Reels. Her top-performing posts reached over 111K impressions, landing above the 90th percentile for sponsored content. By styling thrifted treasures in chic, everyday looks, Beth turned sustainable shopping into an art form.
Some of Our Favorite Campaign Videos
To really put the icing on the cake, each influencer created polished step-by-step videos explaining their recipe in detail. These were great for brand repurposing goals!! (Not to mention, great for their followers too.)
Kara of @smallmuseum_
Kara’s Instagram Reels embodied the perfect mix of creativity and sustainability. With 30.2K impressions, her content invited followers into the world of thrifting and styling, showing how pre-loved fashion can feel fresh, exciting, and completely on-trend. Kara’s storytelling struck a chord with a generation embracing secondhand shopping.
Shavonne
Shavonne took the thrift flip trend to new heights, especially with her home decor content. Her creative vision turned overlooked items into stunning upcycled masterpieces, consistently driving engagement on Instagram. Shavonne’s ability to transform secondhand finds into enviable decor pieces made her a perfect fit for the Savers campaign.
Tanieka @thisborrowedhome
Tanieka Harris is a home decor enthusiast who brings warmth and creativity to her content. In the 2022 campaign, her engaging posts garnered 316,624 impressions and 34,860 engagements, highlighting her ability to connect with audiences through her unique style. Tanieka’s knack for transforming thrifted items into stylish home pieces made her a standout contributor to the campaign’s success.
Campaign Wrap-Up
Over two years, The Shelf helped Savers transform thrift from a price play into a culture driver. The campaign reintroduced the brand to a younger audience, built an always-on content engine, and delivered real performance—across both organic and paid. From scroll-stopping thrift flips to high-efficiency paid activations, the strategy proved that creativity and conversions don’t have to compete. This was brand storytelling built to scale—and it did.
🧠 Key Takeaways
- Rebrands need reach + receipts: The campaign proved that influencer content can shift perception and drive engagement at scale.
- Creative structure fuels reuse: Content built around flexible, evergreen themes delivered long-tail value across organic and paid.
- Right creators, right platforms: Segmenting by tier, format, and region gave the brand the creative volume and performance depth it needed to win in both the U.S. and Canada.
- Paid lift multiplies impact: Allowlisting transformed high-performing organic content into performance powerhouses with exceptional efficiency.
Bold ideas. Cultural relevance. Data-first strategies.
At The Shelf, we create the blueprint that drives results for brands and inspires the industry. Ready to see what we can do for your brand?Let’s talk.
Schedule a Strategy Call
