Tiffany & Co. wants shoppers to picture a gift that outlives the holiday it was bought for.
The jewelry house has launched "Love is a Gift," a global campaign created with American Haiku.
It centers on "You & Me," a two-minute film starring new House ambassador Amanda Seyfried and directed by Academy Award nominee Derek Cianfrance.
The film sends Seyfried to December in 1990s New York, where a Bird on a Rock ornament starts a tradition that spans three generations.
Seyfried has worn the motif before, pinning a Bird on a Rock brooch to a choker at the 2025 Venice premiere of "The Testament of Ann Lee."
Tiffany & Co. has lent Seyfried jewelry for premieres ever since, so her ambassador title makes official a pairing fans have watched for a year.
This year's holiday marketing starts with the idea that Tiffany makes objects people keep as memories.
The film explores where a gift ends and a keepsake begins.
"Moving between past and present, the film reflects the enduring place Tiffany & Co. holds in life’s most meaningful moments and the stories we carry forward," said Andrea Davey, Tiffany & Co. CMO.
American Haiku creative director Ben Muckensturm said the film is about a child entering a parent’s world.
His team wanted to capture "the excitement of discovering that world as a child, and the joy of sharing it as a parent."
The film spans three generations, but Tiffany's brand storytelling aims at the one in the middle.
Millennial parents shopping now were 1990s kids themselves, so they see their own story on both sides of the gift.
Real Archive Pieces Fill the Set
The lead ad follows a mother and daughter through one December day in 1990s New York, stopping at a ballet rehearsal and Tiffany’s holiday windows.
The story then returns to the present, where the grown daughter hands the same ornament to her own daughter.
Seyfried plays the mother, a New York choreographer with a career of her own.
Her daughter tags along to rehearsal and sees, for the first time, that Mom has a creative life outside the family.
American Haiku steered away from the glossy montages common in luxury holiday ads and favored natural behavior and quiet performances.
The backdrop sets the tone, since a pre-digital New York nudges parents who grew up then and mirrors the film's handoff between generations.
A reimagined cover of The Wannadies' 1994 "You and Me Song" recasts a young-love anthem as a song about a mother and daughter.
Production designer Karen Murphy created an Upper East Side home filled with genuine Tiffany archival objects.
Seyfried wears HardWear by Tiffany, a collection of chunky 18k gold links set with pavé diamonds.
But the film's central memory object is a custom ornament inspired by the Bird on a Rock, which Jean Schlumberger designed for Tiffany & Co. in 1965.
The ad will run globally in cinemas, on paid and organic social, and on digital out-of-home screens.
It will also appear on Tiffany's website and owned channels, and store associates will share it through clienteling.
Dressing the set with real archive pieces lets Tiffany prove its heritage in the background of every frame.
Luxury branding gets more convincing when shoppers spot the history on their own.
Heirlooms Make Repeat Customers
The National Retail Federation (NRF) expects U.S. holiday retail sales to grow 4.2% to $1.013 trillion in November and December.
Its annual holiday survey also found that 43% of consumers plan to start shopping before November.
This early start gives a film launched in late October time to work its way onto gift lists.
Last year’s "Love is a Gift," made with Anomaly and starring Anya Taylor-Joy, showed blue boxes opening onto dreamlike scenes in Tokyo, New York, and London.
It followed 2024's "With Love, Since 1837," which drew 57 million organic views.
This year’s film keeps the same love motif but expands it by focusing on the mother-daughter relationship and how their love blossoms during the holiday.
One family's yearly ritual gives Tiffany a reason to show up in the same home every December.
Customer loyalty grows fastest around habits people repeat, and few habits repeat as reliably as unpacking holiday ornaments.
Three takeaways stand out for marketers with this campaign:
- Give the product a repeat role: With the ornament inspired by the Bird on a Rock returning every year, Tiffany & Co.'s story keeps working even after the campaign stretch.
- Match the era to the buyer: The 1990s setting speaks to parents who grew up in that decade, so the story reaches shoppers who buy for the family.
- Put the film in the sales team’s hands: Clienteling lets store associates share the film one-on-one with customers, which links mass-media storytelling to a personal sales conversation.
Ultimately, a holiday film lasts longest when families have a reason to return to its story every season.
Our Take: Does Nostalgia Make Tiffany Feel Like an Heirloom?
Setting the story in the 1990s lends Tiffany's newest pieces a 30-year backstory on day one.
Plenty of millennials remember a Tiffany Blue Box hiding in Mom's dresser drawer, and the film plays straight to this memory.
We'd say that nostalgia does make Tiffany feel like an heirloom, since jewelry earns its price when buyers believe it will outlast them.
It's a funny pivot for a brand whose 2021 "Not your mother's Tiffany" ads angered loyal, mostly older customers on social media.
LVMH still owns Tiffany, and the mothers it once teased are now the heroines of its holiday film.
A big miss, though, is the hand-painted Bird on a Rock ornament, which the brand made only for the film.
A dated version in stores every December would give families a Tiffany tradition to start this year and a reason to come back every year after.
Celebrity endorsements work best when every part of the brand experience feels cohesive.
Explore these top luxury branding agencies to create campaigns that extend beyond a single ambassador announcement.
