Rather than ignore the fact that Target was taking over Zellers, we embraced it.

We told our customers that with Target coming in, Zellers’ senior management was taking early retirement and leaving Zellers' Facebook fans in charge of the Christmas Sale (or what we called the Festive Finale).

So if consumers wanted a say on what products would be going on sale, and for how much, all you had to do was 'like' the page, and then vote. The Festive Finale built a highly-engaged online fan-base and exceeded every single metric set out for it.

The campaign exceeded every metric set out for it. Our videos had over 500,000 views on YouTube, Facebook ads drove 30% more traffic to the page than expected, and coupon engagement was off the charts – 28 times higher than the expected rate. Customers using Festive Finale coupons had an average basket 2.5 times bigger than the average Zellers shopper.Overall, our online fan base tripled, we built a highly engaged social media community (people 'talking about Zellers' on Facebook was 5 times the average rate in their category) and Zellers had its best fourth quarter in 10 years.