The brand has partnered with Choupette, the beloved cat of late Chanel design magnate Karl Lagerfeld, to elevate a collection known for using unconventional materials. Image credit: Hublot
In 2025, luxury brands navigated a landscape defined less by records and more by recalibration.
The personal luxury goods market’s continued recovery remained slower than projected in main global regions, including the U.S. and China. Tightened discretionary spending accelerated the polarization between top buyers and aspirational consumers.
Stagnant macroeconomic conditions forced marketers to justify the relevance of their maisons beyond traditional status signaling, resulting in the release of fewer campaigns with higher impact. From product anniversaries to relaunched archival designs and origin stories that unfolded over the holiday season, heritage remained at the core of many campaigns and approaches to storytelling prioritized quality over quantity.
Luxury fashion houses invested in AI and A-list celebrity ambassadorships, as well as sports partnerships, immersive events and collaborations with major figures in art and film. Online resale channels proliferated as luxury shifted its focus towards India and the Middle East, upgrading in-store experiences with boutique openings and refreshed design concepts.
High-end automotive brands highlighted innovation and excellence alongside EVs. Legacy hospitality names emphasized wellness. Watchmakers leaned into provenance and, across industries, immersive experiences were a recurring theme.
As the new year begins, Luxury Daily is spotlighting the campaigns, activations and strategic initiatives that dominated 2025. Together, these efforts reveal how luxury brands responded to change by sharpening their identities and reasserting their value, setting new benchmarks for the year ahead.
Rewriting the rules of anniversary marketing
Two decades ago, Swiss watchmaker Hublot introduced the Big Bang collection, disrupting the category by design.
The oversized chronographs sported unapologetically industrial facades, featuring raw hardware marked by exposed screws and a commanding bezel. It also made use of unconventional materials, marrying precious metal with carbon fiber, ceramic and rubber.
Since then, the Big Bang has evolved through continual material experimentation and genre-defying complications. An equally audacious campaign celebrated the line’s 20th anniversary in 2025.
Meet Hublot’s new CEO. #Hublot #BigBangAnniversary #OwnIt #choupettelagerfeld pic.twitter.com/H5fiVL4gKd
— Hublot (@Hublot) May 2, 2025
For it, Hublot casts Choupette, the beloved, internet-famous feline of late Chanel design magnate Karl Lagerfeld, hiring Dutch photographer and director Carlijn Jacobs to capture the cat.
Launched May 1, Big Bang’s anniversary campaign unfolded through high-fashion visuals interspersed with meme-style content and behind-the-scenes moments. From “failed” takes to Choupette’s diva behavior, the creative deliberately rejected the hyper-polished tropes of traditional luxury advertising in favor of self-aware, low-filter storytelling.
Staying rooted in a founding spirit of rebellion, the campaign also debuted the brand’s new tagline, “Own It.”
Dutch photographer Carlijn Jacobs captures internet-famous feline Choupette. Image credit: Hublot
This aesthetic extended across TikTok and Instagram, where Choupette modeled the Big Bang 20th Anniversary Red Magic, followed by additional executions featuring the Yellow Neon Saxem tourbillon and Titanium Ceramic editions worn by archetypal figures — a mysterious fashion-forward woman and a powerful athlete — each embodying a different facet of Hublot’s identity.
Hublot’s 20th anniversary campaign for Big Bang strengthened its claim as a brand fluent in both horology and digital culture.
Crediting the collection as what the brand calls the first truly iconic watch of the 21st century, Hublot’s anniversary campaign rises to the top of last year’s releases. It mirrored the unpredictability of the products at its core, using humor to stake its claim at the intersection of horology and digital culture.
Hublot introduced a series of five limited-edition Big Bang anniversary models in 2025. Image credit: Hublot
The modern brand advanced anniversary marketing beyond the standard retrospective, instead opting to make a statement about where contemporary luxury is headed.
“The Big Bang represents a revolution in watchmaking, a perfect union of tradition and modernity,” said Julien Tornare, CEO of Hublot, in a statement.
“While remaining rooted in the values of luxury watchmaking, such as artisanal quality and attention to detail, Hublot has managed to position the Big Bang as a disruptor within an industry that has traditionally seen little design innovation,” Mr. Tornare said. “This is what sets us apart.”
Read more on Hublot’s Big Bang 20th Anniversary campaign here.