• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, August 2, 2019

As part of this year’s back-to-school marketing push, Macy’s is spreading its social wings, with first-time efforts on both Snap and TikTok.

The push is part of its larger campaign, "All Brand New."  The video spot celebrates individuality and self-expression as kids arrive back to class. Created by Macy’s and Major Behavior, a Chicago-based ad agency, the ad shows kids with that empowering clean-slate feeling of the first day of school.

And while those are real kids rocking to “All Brand New” by Danger Twins, there are also sticker effects, giving the spot a look that will feel familiar to the Gen Z-ers who live in a world of social-media filters.

“We are ramping up our testing and learning because we’re looking for many new ways to innovate in the social space,” says Randi Rosenfeld, Macy’s senior director of publishing.

And while the TikTok and Snap efforts are very different, “they are similar in that we’re trying to go into platforms in a relevant, non-disruptive way. We want the elements of our content to feel right, no matter what channel it is being consumed on.”

She tells Marketing Daily the company has hung back on TikTok, to make sure it understood how a much-younger demographic frequenting the social platform liked to engage with brands. The “All Brand New Challenge,” in partnership with influencers, coaxes users to record their content, as well as encouraging others to share their style.

And because it is a temporary presence, it will give Macy’s the chance to assess how well it’s worked before committing to constant content on another social channel.

Macy’s maintains an active presence on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, “and we’re always trying to be more strategic. When we reach you, we want it to be in the most relevant way and at the best time," adds Rosenfeld.

With Snap, the retailer is using an entirely different approach. Macy’s is teaming up with Snap and NBCUniversal exclusively, for the return of the Snap Original “The Dead Girls Detective Agency.” Season 3, which starts on Aug. 11, appears on Snapchat’s Discover page, with Macy’s products integrated throughout the season, giving viewers the chance to shop back-to-school looks.

Macy’s says it’s the first “swipe up to shop” opportunity from a non-skippable commercial within a scripted Snap Original season takeover.

The Macy’s campaign is breaking as parents reach the halfway mark of the back-to-school season. Among parents shopping for children in kindergarten through high school, Deloitte predicts there is $14.5 billion still in play before summer ends, with total spending likely to reach $27.8 billion.