Home for the Holiday

From late September through December, Zulily launches its annual holiday campaign featuring toys, apparel, and more for the gifting season. My creative team ideated the season’s art direction and managed the execution of photography and design across Zulily’s major holiday promotions; The Holiday Shop, The Holiday Blowout Sale, and Santa’s Workshop.

The concept, Delivering Joy, celebrates the joy of the gift giving season with bright colors, shine, and delightful moments. Expressing optimism with a focus on immediate family was intentional during our first Covid Christmas. We paired classic holiday colors with youthful brights for a modern but familiar feel. At this time, Zulily was re-focusing back to “mom” as our target market, with an emphasis on “early-stage” gen z and millennial moms. To appeal to our trend-cautious customer, photography direction aimed for a savvy, pop-art feel with crisp shadows and minimal, monochromic styling.

A Pandemic-Era Photoshoot

A Covid holiday brought challenges to executing our largest campaign on the year. Unprecedented pivots and scrappy solutions paid off and delivered mom a joyful holiday site experience while laying the foundation for the following year.

By September 2021, only a fraction of Zulily’s photo team were permitted to return to the studio after pandemic closures. While navigating limited studio resources and covid regulations, the choice was made to contract an external production agency to execute our holiday photography with a skeleton crew. From scouting agencies and building shot lists, crafting props, and directing the photoshoot, I led this unprecedented shoot to success. Over 300 images were delivered for use across our Holiday 2021 campaign.

Our abundance of photography resulted in hours saved into the next year. Holiday 2021 inspired the direction of the following season, as extra images were utilized as hero assets in the holiday campaign for 2022. The result was reduced production hours, and designers got a head start on the busiest time of the year.