How Reformation hopes viral moments help it become ‘part of a cultural conversation’

Reformation’s Davidson campaign followed a different viral hit last spring after it hired activist Monica Lewinsky on its “You’ve Got the Power” campaign, which featured Lewinsky, encouraging voter registrations. It was an inflection point for the brand as a way to grow brand awareness among new audiences, said Lauren Cohan, chief creative officer at Reformation.

Following the Davidson campaign launch, organic brand search for Reformation increased 30% year-over-year, according to the brand. As for the Reformation’s own social channels, TikTok and Instagram posts saw more than 3 million views each with most of those views from non-followers of the brand with 86% non-followers on Instagram and 99% non-followers on TikTok. While the brand spends “less than 10%” of its revenue on brand marketing, Cohan declined to share exactly how much.

“For every brand the idea of having virality, especially in the market in 2025, is super important, but you can’t manufacture virality,” said Cohan. “What you do either strikes a chord with the macro environment or it doesn’t.” 

Reformation’s campaign featuring Davidson as “the perfect boyfriend” wasn’t a slow burn hit for the brand. It generated more than 100 press stories that either mentioned or were about the campaign since its roll out last week, noted Reformation. As for the Lewinsky campaign, which released last spring, it generated over 150 press stories. Whereas Lewinsky’s campaign was a more social message Davidson’s was a more comedic approach to a “universal truth” for Reformation customers who may want the encouragement of a partner when trying on outfits, Cohan said.

To define whether this campaign reached virality, Reformation is looking at more than just numbers, Cohan said and is considering whether it became “a major part of the cultural conversation.” She noted that the Davidson campaign was discussed on more traditional channels like The Today Show and by content creators on Instagram, X and TikTok. (The marketing conversation that once was centered around Ad Twitter has fractured across social media platforms today; there’s a cottage industry of creators across platforms building their own brands by critiquing brand marketing.) 

“It has real meaning,” said Cohan. “There’s so many layers now. The brand launches something, then the press talks about it and then it reverberates through TikTok and Instagram [creators], these added layers that never existed before. The opportunity to be a part of a cultural conversation — it’s so powerful and it’s obviously something that you can’t manufacture. People want to talk about it or they don’t.”

But there are limitations to virality, explained Cohan, as the brand “can’t expect one campaign to carry it through a season” as was previously the case for fashion brands. Instead, Reformation’s in-house creative (with 15 team members) and brand marketing teams (with seven team members) have to find ways to maintain the momentum. How exactly the brand’s internal teams do that Cohan declined to specify, noting it as the brand’s “secret sauce.”

While marketers can’t manufacture virality, they can understand processes that lead to potentially viral ideas and how they can implement those ideas for their brands. Often, when marketers are seeking a viral idea they tend to look for talent first and ideas second, explained Nathan Jun Poekert, CMO at brand agency General Idea.

But when brands operate idea first and talent second, “that always leads to much better brand ambassador partnerships because you’re basically giving them the full concept and idea,” he said.

A brand should also focus on its audience versus trying to appeal to anyone and everyone. “Being audience-first is really, really key in 2025,” he said. “A lot of brands approach virality with, ‘How do we extend outside of our core audience and appeal to the masses?’ instead of, ‘How do we get our core audience to fall in love with something?’ And as a result of that, because of the way algorithms work, it will eventually show up in suggested post feeds.”