Macy's Tentpole Campaign System:

Scaling systems, storytelling, and execution across every major brand moment.

Context

At Macy's, tentpole campaigns weren't isolated bursts — they were constant, layered, and fast-moving. From Black Friday and Holiday to Spring Refresh and Back-to-School, each campaign ran concurrently with daily promos and always-on messaging. Every moment demanded seamless creative coordination across channels, teams, and technologies — from the first brief to the final sale.

Challenge

Each campaign spanned multiple performance tiers — brand storytelling, promotional, and urgency-driven messaging — while running in parallel with everyday campaign needs. With 560+ assets per tentpole cycle and overlapping timelines, Macy's needed a scalable, systematized approach that allowed for creative flexibility without chaos.

Key challenges included:

  • No repeatable system — every campaign was rebuilt from scratch

  • Multiple message tiers running simultaneously across all channels

  • Creative, media, developers, and brand teams operating without a unified operating model

  • Volume demands that outpaced team capacity under the existing workflow

  • Full lifecycle accountability — from media plan alignment through final asset deployment and sale

Strategy

Build a modular campaign framework that served as the standard operating system for all tentpole efforts — allowing consistent storytelling and cross-functional agility at scale.

Overview

I was responsible for both the system design and end-to-end execution — not just creative oversight, but the full lifecycle from media plan to final sale. This meant coming in at the strategy stage alongside paid media teams, understanding the media plan and audience targets before a single asset was made, and building creative systems that were architected around how and where the media would run.

This included:

  • Developing a DCO creative matrix to guide message variations across audience segments, funnel stages, and placements

  • Designing layout systems and visual rules that reduced production redundancy while allowing flexible messaging shifts

  • Building asset hierarchies tied directly to media plans — ensuring every placement had the right message, format, and creative logic

  • Standardizing handoffs between design, development, and media teams so nothing was built twice and nothing launched wrong

Execution

This wasn't just design oversight. I ran the full creative lifecycle.

  • Led and approved all digital creative assets from design and animation through QA and deployment — 560+ per campaign cycle

  • Built and executed the DCO content matrix, mapping audience targets to creative outputs across HTML5, display, and social platforms

  • Partnered with paid media teams at the plan stage — translating media strategy into creative requirements before production began

  • Collaborated with developers and ad tech vendors ensuring dynamic formats were technically sound and visually consistent across devices

  • Directed a cross-functional team managing multiple overlapping campaigns (tentpole, promo, always-on) while maintaining quality and on-time delivery

  • Partnered with brand and print teams to align messaging strategy and ensure a seamless customer experience across every channel

  • Managed budget implications of production decisions — identifying efficiencies that reduced vendor costs without reducing output quality

Our team has come to rely on Tesia's wireframes and checklists to help us better understand new initiatives, enabling us to create more impactful assets.

Melissa Sheehan, Senior Marketing Leader, Macy's

560+ assets delivered per tentpole cycle

510+ additional assets produced monthly by a lean team of 5 designers and 5 developers

Creative system adopted as SOP across all major seasonal campaigns

Full DCO strategy deployed across multiple platforms and audience segments

Faster time-to-market and reduced production redundancy

Exceeded engagement and conversion benchmarks

Enabled rapid pivots without sacrificing design or message integrity

Results

Creative Takeaway

The best campaign systems don't just deliver volume — they protect the work.

By building a modular framework architected around the media plan from day one — with a DCO matrix that mapped audience segments to message logic before production began — Macy's was able to move faster every season without starting over. Creative, media, and technology moved as one system. That's the difference between running campaigns and building infrastructure.

Services

Creative Strategy — Campaign System Design — DCO Matrix Development — Media Plan Integration — HTML5 & Responsive Ad Leadership — Full Creative Lifecycle Oversight — Motion + Static Asset Production — QA & Launch Coordination — Stakeholder Alignment — Creative Operations & Workflow Optimization