Eton Shirts, a Swedish premium shirt brand founded in 1928, wanted to reach new target groups without leaving old customers behind. Historically, the brand has been a proud producer of high-end business shirts, so to expand into new fashion contexts, they needed an idea that could get more people's attention without making their most dedicated fans feel disconnected – a hard nut to crack. Finding a common denominator between a traditional business audience and a younger, more fashion-oriented one isn’t easy.

Eton Shirts, being true fans of the Beatles, saw an opportunity to collaborate with the band, making a genuine tribute to the incredible power the Beatles have on modern pop culture. Inspired by some of the band’s most iconic records, they released a limited edition shirt collection aimed to attract fans and put the Eton brand in a new context.

In this Beatlemania frenzy, brands were racing to jump on the Beatles train. Consequently, the market was flooded with Beatles-related products, all fighting for the attention of new and old fans. So, how would Eton stand out in this ocean of general merchandise?

By creating products made exclusively for the most dedicated fans out there.

Hardcore Beatles fans dedicate their entire lives to the band and collect everything related to them. But one item is the holy grail – the LP. Fans love to collect exclusive albums and spend countless hours hunting down and discussing rare LP pressings online.

Based on this insight, we built the 'Ticket to buy' activation – a bespoke e-commerce solution where fans' most limited LPs unlocked the opportunity to buy Eton's Beatles collection before anyone else.

The strategy was to connect the Beatles x Eton collaboration to a strong cultural trend among the Beatles fans. Research showed that major Beatles fans gather collectibles as a way to pay tribute to the band. We found that the bigger the fan, the more collectibles that person owns.

Eton wanted to connect the products to Beatles culture by enabling the most dedicated Beatles fans to buy the collection before anyone else, to really put the limited products in the hands of the people who would enjoy it the most.

This made Eton develop a new type of commerce channel, built around fans' most precious collectibles – the LP – to create a unique buying experience that would trigger fans to act on the campaign and push the 'Buy' button.

Based on this insight, we built the 'Ticket to buy' activation – a bespoke e-commerce solution where fans' most limited LPs unlocked the opportunity to buy Eton's Beatles collection before anyone else, connecting the campaign to the hearts of millions of Beatles fans.

By converting the barcodes on the most exclusive Beatles albums into pre-access codes, we created a completely new backend for Eton's e-commerce where fans could test whether their most exclusive LP was a key to the unique collection. This created an emotional connection between Beatles fans and Eton, anchoring the shirts in their minds.

The campaign reached the biggest fans and triggered their collecting behaviour, resulting in a 49% increase in new customers compared to the same period in 2022. Despite the pricing, the collection sold out 95% faster than the average sales rate for Eton's new collections. At the same time, we observed one of the largest increases in organic clicks ever – 31% higher than before.

The activation quickly became a global phenomenon discussed and shared on X, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, etc., generating a total reach of 89 million people organically.

By celebrating the most dedicated Beatles fans, Eton created a never-before-seen e-commerce campaign that proved the power of striking an emotional chord with its target audience.