Macy's Glam Ice Pops and The Remarkable Shot Rewrite Retail Fashion Advertising
Macy's 'Glam Ice Pops, The Remarkable Shot' is a two-part digital campaign created by BBDO New York and published in the United States in July 2018, inviting Instagram audiences to participate directly in the production of summer fashion imagery through screen-capture mechanics and a live-streamed rooftop activation.
The campaign operates as two interconnected activations. The Remarkable Shot placed models in front of the camera for Macy's Instagram Stories, then prompted followers to use their device's screen-capture function to freeze a preferred frame from the video. Winning photographs were credited to the followers who captured them and incorporated into Macy's ongoing social content as well as onto Macys.com, with each photographer's Instagram handle publicly acknowledged. This mechanic transformed a passive audience into a credentialed creative contributor — a structural inversion of how retail fashion advertising had conventionally operated.
The Glam Ice Pops activation extended the campaign into physical spectacle. Four ice pops, each shaped in the form of a Macy's summer dress, were livestreamed melting from the rooftop of Macy's flagship Herald Square location in New York. Viewers who answered questions during the livestream could win the actual summer dresses represented by the melting ice pops, with their answers printed on the sticks. The activation anchored the digital campaign in a recognisable real-world landmark, connecting the United States' most prominent department store address to a playful, seasonal visual metaphor. Together, the two executions form a campaign that sits across digital, social, and experiential registers, using participation and novelty to earn attention in a retail advertising environment that, as reported by LBB Online, was already contending with intensifying pressure from e-commerce and off-price competitors across the US market.
Macy's entered the summer 2018 season facing structural headwinds well documented across the US retail sector. Department-store revenue in the United States was running at approximately $170 billion annually around 2018, according to data cited on Slideshare, yet the category was losing ground to e-commerce platforms, specialty retailers, warehouse clubs, and Amazon. Macy's own revenue growth stood at 2.33% in 2018, according to Studocu's market analysis, reflecting a modest stabilisation rather than a decisive recovery.
Against this backdrop, BBDO New York identified a strategic insight rooted in the behaviour of fashion-conscious social media users rather than in traditional retail media logic. Instagram Stories had already made passive viewing of brand content the norm. The Remarkable Shot flipped that relationship by making the follower's screen-capture gesture — an organic, existing behaviour — the creative act itself. Participation was not a campaign mechanic layered on top of content; it was the content. This positioned Macy's against competitors such as Target, which according to Slideshare held a significant share within selected US retail segments, and department-store peers that were spending heavily on broadcast and celebrity-driven campaigns. Rather than outspend, BBDO's strategy was to out-engage.
The Glam Ice Pops activation reinforced this logic by tying digital participation to a physical prize — the actual dresses — and anchoring the livestream to Herald Square, a location that carries national recognition in the United States. The campaign represented, as noted by LBB Online, a deliberate shift from the celebrity-and-designer advertising that had characterised Macy's earlier work, including its American Icons programme, toward visual storytelling built for digital native audiences. The strategic premise was that earned creative credit, not paid celebrity endorsement, would drive summer 2018 fashion consideration among Macy's core demographic in the United States.
David Lubars, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO, oversaw the campaign at the most senior creative level, with Greg Hahn serving as Chief Creative Officer of BBDO New York. Executive Creative Directors Danilo Boer and Marcos Kotlhar led the creative direction of both activations, supported by Associate Creative Director Gabrielle Attia, Art Director Sho Matsuzaki, and Junior Art Director Brian Kim. Production was overseen by David Rolfe, Executive Vice President and Director of Integrated Production at BBDO New York, with Senior Producer Andrew Osborne and Junior Producer Danielle Lukacs managing day-to-day execution.
The Remarkable Shot demanded a production approach unusual in retail fashion advertising. The video sequences shot for Instagram Stories needed to function simultaneously as conventional fashion content — models styled and lit to showcase Macy's summer dresses — and as raw material for the audience to edit through capture. Every frame therefore had to be independently compelling, because any one of them might become the photograph a follower submitted. This imposed a continuous-quality discipline on the shoot that a traditional editorial session, designed around selected hero images, does not require. The result, as documented by LBB Online, was a body of content that credited participating followers by name and Instagram handle on Macys.com, lending the final campaign imagery a provenance rooted in community rather than in a hired photographer's portfolio.
The Glam Ice Pops creative required a different form of craft: the construction of four ice pops detailed enough in silhouette to read as specific Macy's dress styles, produced at a scale suitable for rooftop livestreaming from Herald Square. The answers viewers submitted were physically printed on the sticks — a detail that closed the loop between digital participation and physical object, and gave the activation a tactile narrative reported on by LBB Online as central to the campaign's experiential ambition.
No verified performance data for the 'Glam Ice Pops, The Remarkable Shot' campaign is publicly available. Neither Macy's nor BBDO New York has released documented metrics covering reach, engagement rate, follower-credited image submissions, or conversion impact attributable to the July 2018 activations in the United States. Analysis of structural effectiveness therefore stands as the primary evaluative framework.
The Remarkable Shot mechanic carries genuine structural strength. By making the screen-capture gesture — already native to how Instagram users interact with Stories — the entry mechanism, the campaign removed friction entirely. Followers did not need to create content from scratch; they selected it. This lowered the participation threshold substantially, which in retail advertising terms is a meaningful design advantage. The credited placement of winning images on Macys.com added a durable incentive: the promise of public attribution on a major retail platform is a stronger motivator than a like or a repost.
The Glam Ice Pops livestream added spectacle and time-pressure, two reliable drivers of live social engagement, while the prize mechanic — winning the actual dress — connected the activation directly to purchase consideration rather than to brand awareness alone. The Herald Square rooftop setting amplified earned media potential by attaching the campaign to one of the most recognised retail addresses in the United States.
Set against these strengths, the campaign's Clapboard Score of 51 out of 100 reflects the limits of what can be assessed without verified outcome data, and acknowledges that a technically inventive mechanic does not automatically translate into measurable commercial impact. The campaign is structurally sound and creatively distinctive within the 2018 US retail advertising landscape, but its effectiveness remains analytically incomplete.
The Remarkable Shot is a 2018 Instagram Stories activation created by BBDO New York for Macy's in the United States. Followers used their device's screen-capture function to photograph models from video content. Winning images were credited to the capturing followers and published on Macys.com and in Macy's social channels, as reported by LBB Online.
Glam Ice Pops were four frozen treats shaped like Macy's summer dresses, livestreamed melting from the rooftop of Macy's Herald Square in New York. Viewers answered questions during the stream to win the actual dresses, with their answers printed on the ice pop sticks, as documented by LBB Online.
BBDO New York created the campaign for Macy's. The team included Worldwide Chief Creative Officer David Lubars, CCO New York Greg Hahn, and Executive Creative Directors Danilo Boer and Marcos Kotlhar. The campaign was published in the United States in July 2018 and consisted of two linked digital activations.
David Lubars served as Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO during the campaign's creation. He provided senior creative oversight alongside Greg Hahn as CCO of BBDO New York. Executive Creative Directors Danilo Boer and Marcos Kotlhar led day-to-day creative direction of both the Remarkable Shot and Glam Ice Pops activations.
Macy's 'Glam Ice Pops, The Remarkable Shot' holds a Clapboard Score of 51 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's structurally inventive participation mechanic and strong creative credentials, offset by the absence of publicly verified performance data from its July 2018 United States launch.
The campaign marked a deliberate departure from Macy's celebrity-driven advertising formats, including its American Icons programme. Rather than centering paid talent, BBDO New York built the 2018 campaign around follower participation and digital-native behaviour, crediting Instagram users as photographers on Macys.com, as reported by LBB Online.
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