The Trinity Award for Breaking Boundaries in 2022: DFS Group

This award reflects our view that to reward innovation in the travel retail sector, it has to go beyond the norm, be meaningful in business terms and boldly explore the boundaries of how the industry can engage, excite and entertain.

In this sense, DFS Group’s entry into the Metaverse – and importantly its application within the company’s Annual Beauty Campaign – had irresistible credentials as our choice within this category.

The campaign, titled ‘Open Up Your Horizons’, ran through August and September, and combined in-store activations as well as a fully interactive, shoppable digital luxury playground with DFS’ first virtual universe, DFS World.

We also like the modern campaign language, catering to “today’s confident, daring and imaginative beauty connoisseur in real life as well as in the boundless and magical Metaverse”. The themes blended the premium with the everyday: ‘Effortless, Not Lazy’, dedicated to luxury makeup; ‘Stay Up, Glow Up’ built around skincare recovery and ‘Future You’ featuring luminous, fluid cosmetics and scents inspired by digital filters and virtual worlds.

It is a story of experiential multi-brand and premium zones, featuring fun, interactive games and experiences. It reflects just how today’s inventive campaigns will become core elements of tomorrow’s world, blending the physical and the virtual – and this is just the beginning.