With the Australian Fashion Industry Awards fast approaching, Ragtrader is taking a daily look inside each category — the finalists, the work behind the entries and the strategy that earned them their place.
First up: Marketing Campaign of the Year, one of the most hotly contested categories of the 2026 program. The seven finalists are Decjuba, H&M, Honey Birdette, Peter Alexander, Saba, Sheike and Witchery.
Winners will be revealed at the AFIA Awards Lunch on Thursday 6 August at The Promenade Docklands, Melbourne. Tickets are on sale now.
The AFIAs 2026 are supported by Headline Sponsor The Retail Score, Gold Sponsors Better Packaging and ReStore, Silver Sponsors Apparel21 and Williams Logistics and Bronze Sponsor Afterpay.
Here's the work that got the finalists there in alphabetical order:
Decjuba
With denim growth stalling in a saturated category, Decjuba launched its largest-ever denim range — 70 pieces across 12 washes in sizes 6 to 20 — under the platform Think Denim. Wear Decjuba. The campaign set out to reclaim the brand's position in the denim conversation, targeting a multi-generational female customer with Jess Hart as the campaign face and denim positioned as a critical entry category, with one in four new customers purchasing denim first.
Execution spanned high-impact OOH and DOOH, social, PR, influencer seeding and The Denim Studio, a first-of-its-kind activation at the Doncaster flagship showcasing every fit, wash and style alongside personalised styling and tailoring services.
The results reset the benchmark for the business. Online denim sales lifted 166% with a 177% uplift in traffic to the denim category page, while The Denim Studio drove a 208% year-on-year increase in denim sales at Doncaster — contributing around 51% of total store sales during the activation. In-store denim sales across the wider network grew 11%, UGC surged 204% with more than 1,400 organic mentions and launch event tickets sold out in three minutes and 15 seconds.
H&M
A decade after entering the market, H&M set out to reignite its brand in Australia and New Zealand with the local launch of its global A/W 2025 campaign fronted by Charli XCX — shifting perception from retailer to fashion brand by leaning into the label's longstanding connection between fashion and music.
A high-impact PR and influencer event headlined by Benee introduced the collection to media and KOLs, with tickets won through competitions seeded via unbranded street posters that funnelled entries through the H&M Member loyalty program. Retail was treated as media, with immersive activations across GPO Melbourne, Pitt Street and Parramatta, supported by OOH, influencer amplification and an editorial partnership with PedestrianTV.
Fashion perception among women aged 16 to 25 improved 30% year on year, top-of-mind awareness rose 30% in April and 20% in May, new customer acquisition grew 17% and online traffic climbed 34%. Influencer activity delivered five million impressions at a 975% ROI, earned media value increased 347% year on year and loyalty performance strengthened with Share of Receipt up 15% and recruitment rate up 12%.
Honey Birdette
Nakeds 2.0 was a global relaunch of Honey Birdette's basics category, designed to prove everyday lingerie doesn't need to feel basic. Targeting women aged 28 to 40 across Australia, the US, the UK and Europe, the campaign positioned elevated everyday lingerie as a core wardrobe essential without diluting the brand's bold DNA.
In a feed dominated by AI-generated content, Honey Birdette deliberately leaned into real production — shooting on location across London's Trafalgar Square, the Underground, black taxis and double-decker buses with four international models and Australian photographer Adrian Mesko. Crowds gathered, tourists filmed and behind-the-scenes content gained traction before the campaign officially launched, feeding a fully integrated 360 rollout across ecommerce, retail, CRM, social, paid media and influencer gifting suites in London and Los Angeles.
The campaign generated more than 3.5 million in owned social reach and 150,000-plus engagements globally. Commercially, full-price mix within basics rose to 92% from 67% the prior year alongside gross margin dollar growth of 23%, while the collection earned a 4.9 out of five average online review rating — firmly establishing the brand in the everyday category.
Peter Alexander
Peter Alexander's 2025 Christmas campaign had to build on an exceptional 2024 result across the brand's most commercially significant trading period — a nine-week window demanding creative depth across sleepwear, gifting and accessories in both retail and online channels.
Developed with long-term agency Paper Stone Scissors, the campaign centred on Peter Alexander — A Christmas Classic, positioning the brand as part of the modern Australian Christmas tradition. Inspired by classic Christmas films, the creative combined retro styling, cinematic copywriting and playful movie-reference headlines, brought to life through inclusive casting across ages, body sizes, genders and ethnicities. Hero matching family sleepwear sat alongside gift guide creative that spotlighted the brand's distinctive packaging, executed across retail windows, ecommerce, digital catalogues, EDMs and organic social with targeted paid support.
The campaign delivered strong commercial outcomes across both retail and ecommerce, building on the previous year's momentum with growth across stores and online and improved sell-through across the Christmas collection. By reinforcing the emotional role the brand plays in family Christmas traditions, the campaign cemented Peter Alexander's leadership within festive sleepwear and gifting.
Saba
Saba turned 60 in 2026 and brought founder Joe Saba back into the brand story for the first time since he sold the business in 2002. The campaign centred on his personal archive — around 600 items spanning press clippings, garments, photographs and even a Saba Barbie — digitised and formally incorporated into the State Library of Victoria's holdings.
The archive was the creative. The retrospective film Where It Began launched in March 2026 alongside window activations across all 21 stores nationally, in-store visits with Joe and Marita Saba, editorial content and reels — with cafe takeovers, a Geelong Football Club partnership and a customer memory callout continuing through the year.
Earned media delivered 17 press placements across trade, consumer and mainstream titles with $201,557 in ad value and 84.6 million total audience reach, including The Weekend Australian, 7News and a Geelong Advertiser cover story. Email averaged a 57% open rate, 18% above baseline, while organic social hit 4.2 million combined views with Instagram interactions up 146.9% year on year. The archive itself is a permanent institutional outcome that will keep generating content well beyond the anniversary.
Sheike
For Black Friday, Sheike ran a first-to-market strategy for the business: placing its offer behind an exclusive Sheike Society member sign-up wall. Rather than presenting the discount universally, access required joining the loyalty program — transforming a transactional promotion into a premium acquisition and engagement mechanic.
The campaign ran a dual-path customer experience across every channel. Existing members received frictionless, personalised access to their VIP code, while non-members encountered bold acquisition messaging positioning membership as the gateway to privileged access. A two-week pre-launch seeding strategy across email, paid media and social built anticipation before launch, with onsite pop-ups and homepage messaging acting as the primary conversion engine.
Across the three-day window, Sheike Society membership grew 9% versus the previous week — one of the strongest acquisition periods since program launch — with more than 4,000 new members directly attributed to onsite pop-ups and paid activity. Launch day sales exceeded target by 34%, making it the highest trading day of the financial year, while average online member spend increased 169% versus the previous week and in-store member spend rose 20%.
Witchery
In its 18th year, Witchery's White Shirt Campaign needed to stay culturally relevant while deepening awareness of ovarian cancer — a disease with survival rates still below 50% — in partnership with the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, with 100% of gross proceeds donated to research.
Witchery partnered with Byron Bay label St. Agni and founder Lara Fells — who managed Witchery's Byron Bay boutique for six years before founding her brand — on three elevated white shirt silhouettes. Shot across Sydney's coastline rather than in studio, the campaign reintroduced a collective ambassador approach spanning 33 influential Australian women led by Phoebe Tonkin, alongside Sarah Abo, Nicole Warne, Steph Claire Smith and Indy Clinton, executed across retail, PR, social, paid, EDM, OOH and launch events in Sydney and Melbourne.
Against initial KPIs of $6.5 million-plus in PR value and 239 million total reach, the campaign had generated more than 501 million total reach and over $47 million in combined PR value by mid-May 2026 — with the campaign still live to October. Commercially, 4,580 White Shirt units have been sold, generating $544,816 in donations to the OCRF.