Depop’s Biggest U.S. Campaign Aims to Make Resale Fashion a Cultural Norm

Imagine you’re at a bar. Across the room, you see a stranger in a familiar item of clothing. As you meet their eyes, you realize they’re wearing the same sweater you sold on a secondhand fashion site five years ago. 

This serendipitous encounter actually happened to one former user of Depop, said Kelley Barrett, creative director of Uncommon Creative Studio, the agency behind the resale platform’s latest campaign. Barrett recalled reading the anecdote on social media, where another user commented, “There must be a reason your paths crossed.”

“We wanted to play up that poetry,” Barrett said. “A complete stranger is taking your item and wearing it–what if there’s this deep connection between you?”

Today (Sept 2), Depop launched its largest U.S. ad campaign to-date, “Where Taste Recognizes Taste,” based on the idea that a shared sense of style can inextricably link people from worlds apart. 

Uncommon, which expanded its partnership with Depop from the U.K. to the U.S., dramatized that feeling through a surreal ad in which a man’s sweater begins to unravel. One of the strings pulls him across city streets, offices, houses, and landscapes, until he finally meets the person on the other side of the yarn: a woman who bought his sweater on Depop. 

“The initiative celebrates unexpected connections—those moments where someone just gets your taste—and spotlights ‘Depopelgangers’ who find their style twins through shared fashion preferences,” said Sonia Biddle, interim chief product officer and marketing leader at Depop.

The campaign will roll out nationwide across out-of-home, streaming radio, connected TV, and paid social.

Resale’s explosive growth

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in London, Depop, now a subsidiary of Etsy, has a global user base of more than 43.5 million people and is the fastest growing resale platform in the U.S., according to Biddle. While it’s well known in the U.K. and among Gen Z, it wants to broaden its appeal across geographies and demographics.

“When we partnered with Uncommon, the brief was to shift the perception of resale into a broader cultural space,” Biddle explained. “We wanted to develop a bold, culture-driving idea that would resonate with new audiences, while still appealing to our core demographic.”

Depop has grown alongside the explosion of resale fashion. The global secondhand apparel market is projected to reach $367 billion by 2029, and the U.S. secondhand fashion market grew by 14% last year, according to fellow resale platform ThredUp’s latest Resale Report. 

Beyond Depop’s core audience of Gen Z, the brand now sees new groups embracing the platform, such as parents buying secondhand clothing for their children, said Biddle. 

Yet as circular fashion becomes more popular, Depop wanted to show that it’s “a cultural norm, not just an alternative—resale can be an easy, everyday habit for anyone,” she said. 

A fresh tone

That goal meant changing the tone of Depop’s advertising.

“We wanted to move past the educational copy we have historically used in our campaigns, and lean into a more emotive and cinematic way of storytelling,” said Biddle. 

That’s where the idea of taste informed the campaign. The new tagline, “Where Taste Recognizes Taste,” is about highlighting the “taste level and human connection” on Depop, Barrett said. 

Depop and Uncommon also wanted the ads “to be welcoming,” said the agency’s creative director Katie Dinardo. “There’s a perception among some older millennials who might not think their stuff belongs on Depop, or that people won’t want it.”

As the campaign evolves, Depop will continue to emphasize its community and “spotlight the real people behind the platform: the passionate sellers, buyers, and style twins who find each other through shared aesthetics,” Biddle said. 

“Secondhand isn’t only sustainable, it’s also where the most interesting, personalized wardrobes are built through genuine style connections within our wildly diverse and global community,” she added.  “It’s one thing making secondhand accessible, but it also needs to be exciting.”