Primark’s first UK television campaign delivered record ad awareness, double-digit denim sales growth, and stronger quality perceptions, giving the value retailer fresh evidence that mass-media investment can support both brand and commercial performance.
The campaign, In Denim We Can, launched in September 2025 as part of the That’s So Primark brand platform. Created with VCCP and Starcom, it promoted the retailer’s autumn and winter denim range across TV, broadcaster video on demand, digital, out-of-home, and in-store channels.
Marketing Week reported that the campaign delivered the highest ad awareness score Primark had recorded with YouGov, alongside double-digit growth in denim sales. It also improved ad awareness, quality perception, purchase intent, and consideration.
The results were discussed at Thinkbox’s Advertising Through Adversity event on 2 June, where Primark campaign lead Gemma Tedder said TV had marked a significant step for the retailer.
“For Primark, that was definitely a big step. When we think about denim, we know that millions of people enjoy wearing Primark denim, but millions more are still spending way, way, way more than they need to get a great piece of denim,” she said.
She added: “We really needed to unlock those audiences that we just weren’t talking to. And TV gave us that scale to do that.”
Primark had been on the UK high street for 50 years and had 96% awareness, but had not advertised on TV before last year. The move followed several years of marketing development with media agency Starcom, which began working with the retailer in 2022.
Starcom managing partner Danny Weitzkorn said the retailer had “never spent a penny on advertising” before that relationship began. He said the challenge was: “How do you convince the CFO to invest more money, let alone even start a programme?”
Over recent years, Primark and Starcom built a strategy around measurement, including regression modelling and test-and-learn activity. Weitzkorn said: “We’ve been able to export those learnings and take them across the different markets, which has been hugely powerful for their business.”
He added: “Not least just to be able to help the boardroom be able to understand the contribution that marketing can bring to their business.”
Primark’s campaign was designed to reach “savvy shoppers” who might reconsider the retailer if perceptions of quality and style shifted. The company also faced competitive pressure from the middle of the market, including M&S and H&M, and from lower-cost rivals such as Shein and Temu.
Weitzkorn said: “Denim was one of our staples and this was the battleground that we were losing. Ultimately, our share was declining. We needed to help people to understand and demonstrate the quality of our product, whilst also getting them into the store to be able to buy more product.”
Primark used connected identity data to identify programmes that over-indexed with its target audience, then applied the same strategy across broadcaster video on demand and digital channels. The TV campaign launched during ITV drama I Fought the Law before appearing during The Great British Bake Off, helping Primark reach almost a third of its target audience within 48 hours.
Econometric modelling found that TV delivered an ROI of 7.6, almost double the benchmark identified in Thinkbox’s Profit Ability 2 study. Stephanie Whitfield of Starcom said: “No longer are we discussing TV as just a brand channel, but as a channel that can be really held responsible for driving business growth.”
The results arrive while marketing budgets remain under pressure and performance channels face diminishing returns in many categories. Retailers are trying to protect margins, defend share, and maintain footfall while consumers remain selective on discretionary spending.
Primark’s case strengthens the argument for brand investment where the measurement framework is strong enough. The campaign was not judged only on visibility or creative distinctiveness, but on awareness, perception, sales, and return on investment. That distinction becomes important when finance teams are demanding clearer evidence from marketing spend.
The campaign also reflects a broader shift in retail marketing. Pure price messaging is harder to sustain as a differentiator, especially when low-cost online competitors can undercut on range and speed. For a value retailer with a large store estate, quality perception, style credibility, and confidence in the in-store trip are commercially significant.
Primark’s denim campaign addressed that by using advertising to shift assumptions, not only to prompt existing customers to buy. The retailer used a high-reach channel to speak to shoppers who knew the brand but were not yet convinced about a particular category.
Balanced marketing investment is regaining attention as brands reassess the relationship between short-term acquisition and long-term demand creation. Performance channels can capture demand already in market. Brand activity, when properly measured, can widen the market and change the assumptions that determine whether a customer considers a product in the first place.
Primark’s campaign appears to have done both. It increased awareness, improved quality perceptions, and supported denim sales growth. The commercial discipline behind the campaign is as important as the creative decision: marketing investment is easier to defend when finance, measurement, media planning, and category objectives are connected before the work goes live.
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