Social Rocket
Express brings an entire celebrity family into its social campaign for Christmas. Lisa Rinna, Harry Hamlin, their daughter Delilah Belle Hamlin and her partner Mick Maio appear together in front of the camera in "Holiday, Hamlin Style". The campaign, presented on 2 November 2026, combines short videos, digital advertising and the stores of the US fashion retailer. Behind it is a deliberate continuation of a social idea that had already generated a particularly high level of organic attention in the spring.
First the couple, then the family
In April, Express featured Delilah Belle Hamlin and Mick Maio, known from "Love Island", in "It Couple, It Looks". According to the brand, the collaboration had by then delivered the highest organic social media engagement of the year. Rather than simply booking a new face, Express is widening the circle: Delilah's parents take on roles in short, festive scenes.
The characters serve different purposes. The younger couple represents the existing social community, Lisa Rinna stands for reality TV pop culture and decades of fame, and Harry Hamlin offers recognition with a different generation. The cast is therefore also an audience segmentation, without every group needing an entirely different commercial.
Express presents the family in several Christmas vignettes, accompanied by remixes of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker". According to the brand, the fashion shown is priced between 38 and 298 dollars. The clips are meant to work in the feed, in online videos and in stores alike.
What the campaign figures so far indicate
Since its bankruptcy under Chapter 11 in April 2024, Express has been rebuilding its brand perception. The company now belongs to the retail joint venture Phoenix Retail. The marketing task is therefore not only to sell Christmas merchandise in the short term, but to bring old and new customers back to the brand.
In addition to the spring format, the retailer staged the campaign "Too Easy to Look This Good" in the autumn with pop star Tinashe and football player Tee Higgins. According to marketing chief Joe Berean, it had by then achieved the highest earned media values and the most paid-media-driven website visits of the year. From the second to the third quarter, Express also reported three percent more brand awareness and two percent more purchase consideration. These are company figures, and the exact measurement method was not broken down in the interview.
The mechanics behind social-first Christmas advertising
At Express, organic resonance serves as a casting signal for the next big appearance. A successful couple constellation becomes a reusable content world. That is more interesting than the usual one-off celebrity post: the story continues from spring through Christmas, while the cast and purchase occasions change.
Other retailers are now also linking holiday campaigns across several channels. Walmart works with the Muppets as recognisable characters, while Target combines TikTok creators with shopping aids and AI shopping. The stop-motion campaign by e.l.f. even moves its content onto in-store screens.
For German fashion brands, the transferable idea lies in building a format instead of a series of isolated campaigns: first test with creator content what the community actually shares; then transfer successful characters and motifs to larger advertising spaces – without losing sight of the social mechanics.
Sources: Marketing Dive – interview with Express CMO Joe Berean (2 November), Express: spring campaign "It Couple, It Looks", WHP Global – official autumn campaign.