Bloomingdale's UAE & Kuwait
The Challenge
Bloomingdale's UAE and Kuwait had been early adopters of Performance Max to achieve ambitious revenue goals. But early campaigns were lacking the full suite of assets, especially video, meaning they weren't making the most of every format available.
As a luxury retailer, maintaining brand quality and adherence to creative guidelines was the top priority. The challenge was not simply adding video, it was adding video at speed without compromising the brand's identity in one of the most discerning retail markets in the world.
Our Approach
Bloomingdale's was missing video assets for its Performance Max campaigns. Using Google's Production Creative Works programme, brand-guideline videos were produced for the test, repurposing existing content to unlock every available ad format with minimal manual input.
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Creative Works Production, Partnered with Google's Production Creative Works to build brand-safe video assets using existing Bloomingdale's content, preserving visual identity while unlocking new formats.
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Priority Category Selection, Bloomingdale's identified specific high-priority product categories to focus the test, ensuring incremental performance gains were measurable and attributable.
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Structured Measurement with Assembly, Agency partner Assembly helped implement and measure the strategy, providing rigorous incrementality testing to isolate the impact of adding video to Performance Max.
The Results
When 2023 fall/winter season videos were added to Bloomingdale's Performance Max campaigns, the results were immediate and significant. Across the UAE and Kuwait markets, the brand unlocked performance gains that validated the video-first approach at scale.
The next step: rolling out video assets across all Bloomingdale's Performance Max priority campaigns to replicate and compound these gains across the full catalogue.
"The balance of staying true to our identity versus deploying engaging video ads at speed can often prove to be challenging for us. Creative Works delivered the solution by using existing content to unlock all formats with minimal manual input."
— Harry Lonergan, Head of Digital Marketing, Bloomingdale's
Frequently Asked
Brand quality at scale is achieved by building a structured creative process before production begins. For Bloomingdale's, this meant leveraging Google's Production Creative Works programme to repurpose existing brand-approved content rather than shooting new material from scratch. Every asset was reviewed against Bloomingdale's visual guidelines, tone, typography, colour palette, and talent, before going live. The result is brand-safe video produced in a fraction of the time and cost of a traditional production cycle.
Performance Max uses Google's AI to serve the best asset combination for each impression across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. Without video, campaigns are excluded from YouTube and certain Discovery placements entirely, missing a significant portion of available inventory. Adding video unlocks these high-intent, high-attention surfaces. Google's algorithm can then optimise across a wider signal set, which typically drives efficiency improvements across every metric: ROAS rises, conversion rates improve, and cost per conversion falls.
Measurement was structured as a controlled test, with agency partner Assembly implementing and overseeing the methodology. Priority categories were identified in advance so that performance changes could be isolated to the video intervention. Before-and-after comparisons were combined with incrementality analysis to ensure results were attributable to the addition of video assets, not external market factors such as seasonal demand. This rigorous approach gave Bloomingdale's the confidence to expand the strategy to their full Performance Max portfolio.
Yes, and Bloomingdale's is a prime example. The concern that automated ad systems sacrifice brand control is understandable, but Performance Max gives advertisers full authority over their creative assets. The AI selects which assets to show and where, but it can only draw from what you provide. By investing in brand-guideline video assets upfront, luxury brands ensure that every impression, regardless of placement, reflects their identity. The key is treating creative quality as a non-negotiable input, not an afterthought.