The ramp-up of artificial intelligence alongside shifting consumer preferences is causing The Iconic to redirect how the fashion platform spends its marketing budget.
Speaking at Elevate in Sydney, an event hosted by Monday.com, The Iconic’s director of brand, media, and communications, Georgia Thomas, confirmed that the platform’s marketing budget hasn’t increased.
In fact, parent company Global Fashion Group – which also manages the Zalora platform in Southeast Asia and Dafiti in Latin America – reported in its 2025 half-year overview that its ratio of marketing costs to net merchandise value (NMV) across all three entities combined is 150 basis points lower than five years ago, landing at 6.9 per cent in the first half of 2025. And that is despite reporting group-wide double-digit NMV percentage drops in the first half of 2023 and 2024.
Meanwhile, the ratio of tech and admin costs to NMV across the group lifted 360 basis points in the same time frame, hitting 15.6 per cent.
Despite no increase in marketing spend, NMV at The Iconic lifted 5.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, with active customers passing 2 million.
Thomas said this NMV growth has come as her marketing team reinvests the budget in areas where they can find cost savings, with a stronger focus on AI.
“That might be small things in creative production shoots where we're enhancing backdrops, so we're not shooting everything in real life. That doesn't mean we're not using models, because we are, but we are just enhancing.”
Thomas said the marketing around its Christmas gift cards for 2025 was also designed with AI. “We were using products, so it's a storytelling campaign, but they don't have an issue with us using AI on them.”
This redirection of the marketing budget is leaving room for The Iconic to invest more in real-world marketing. Thomas said digital fatigue is a real thing; people are craving more real-life experiences. She said there is a renaissance happening right now, which she considers a paradox of AI.
“People are actually craving imperfection now, too. So you'll start to see it through some of the amazing campaigns coming out of the United States,” Thomas said.
Thomas referenced Prada, which has been shooting a few vintage-style campaigns through 2025.
“You've got Calvin doing VHS shoots, because you can't authenticate that with AI. There's always going to be a nervousness. What does this mean? But there's also always a renaissance. People want the opposite of that, and it's a balance.
“The point being, we've got more time and efficiency and money to now spend on these real-life events that we're doing more of next year.”