Express nods to its Y2K heyday in campaign that unites fashion, music

Express nods to its Y2K heyday in campaign that unites fashion, music

CMO Joe Berean discusses a fall effort featuring pop star Tinashe and NFL player Tee Higgins that iterates on the retailer’s “Dress to Express” brand platform.

Express on Monday launched its fall campaign, “Too Easy to Look This Good,” with a video that features multi-hyphenate musician Tinashe and NFL player Tee Higgins, per details shared with Marketing Dive. The campaign takes its name from a lyric in the pop star’s single, “Too Easy,” which also soundtracks the ad.

A 30-second hero video features Tinashe DJing a pool party where Higgins is hanging out. The artist leaves the turntables to try on different outfits and hits the dance floor at the iconic, John Lautner-designed Goldstein House in Beverly Hills. The video was directed by Colin Tilley, choreographed by JaQuel Knight, produced by London Alley and features dancers Aaliyah Beck, Amara Iromaka, Josie Thompson and Shiori Murayama.

“Fashion has always been a huge part of my creative expression and is deeply connected to my music,” Tinashe said in a statement. “‘Too Easy’ is a song about confidence and fully owning who you are. Express also embodies that confident energy, and it was so much fun to explore what happens when style, movement and music come together naturally.”

The “Too Easy to Look This Good” campaign will span streaming video, digital, social, print, in-store and online channels. The effort builds on the retailer’s “Dress to Express” brand platform, which launched in February 2025 and centers confidence and self-expression in the retailer’s marketing.

“The campaign reflects where we are as a brand, how we're investing in the brand, how we're thinking about our positioning and how to leverage our ‘Dress to Express’ platform to differentiate ourselves and effectively rebuild the brand’s heat,” said CMO Joe Berean.

Express has been in a rebuilding phase since filing for Chapter 11 in April 2024. The retailer and its Bonobos subsidiary later that year were bought out of bankruptcy by Phoenix Retail, a joint venture from Simon Property Group, Brookfield Properties, Centennial and brand management firm WHP Global. Berean has been with Express since 2019 and was appointed CMO in March 2026.

The new marketing push is in support of a fall collection that offers a modern interpretation of late-1990s and early 2000s style, including a Hyper Stretch Bootcut Jean for women and a new Y2K Wash Jean for men. Express previously teamed with women’s retail brand Bebe for a similarly Y2K-themed collection.

“Y2K, 1990s nostalgia is certainly having a moment, and that's not something that's lost on us, especially as a brand that really was a big part of that era,” Berean said of the “Too Easy” campaign. “It's taking the worlds of fashion, music and sports, and bringing them together in a cool, nostalgic way through this music video that's inspired by the 90s and 2000s, the height of the music video era.”

Meet The Expressionists

To reach both its loyal customer base and a new generation of customers, Express strategized its content and media in tandem. The campaign represents a shift towards more video-focused advertising that shows fashion in motion in social media’s preferred format.

“It’s bringing together the right people and the right talent — the world of fashion meets music meets sports — and then delivering that, through formats and vignettes, with a full-funnel media plan that's grounded in the music video that we made,” Berean said.

Along with Tinashe, Higgins and the dance crew in the video, the people that will help extend the campaign are The Expressionists, the brand’s social-first community that launched in February and is comprised of creators, associates and brand ambassadors. Such creator communities have become de rigueur for retail brands, but few have a name as catchy and descriptive.

“The brand has always been about creating confidence in people and inspiring self-expression, and so a natural extension of that is turning to the people that we’re creating that confidence in and inspiring them to be expressive in their style and sharing that with the world through the power of our brand and the power of our marketing,” Berean said.

Previous creator-driven efforts by the brand have featured celebrity couples Brooklyn and Nicola Peltz Beckham and Hart Denton and Elysée Sanvillé, as well as professional soccer player Walker Zimmerman.

“We've had everything from nano-creators to mega celebrities representing this idea of sharing their style and translating our brand through their own personal POV, and this [new campaign] is just the perfect next step in that journey,” Berean said.

The “Too Easy to Look This Good” campaign arrives amid a rash of fall and back-to-school campaigns that seek to tap into increased attention and visits to malls, driven by Gen Z and, often, their parents, Berean explained. The effort will appear in and throughout Express stores, with a focus on denim later this month.

“The goal here is to see traction across all traffic channels, inclusive of our stores — which are so important and are nationwide — and getting this campaign, the video and all the assets to support it out there, so that we are top of mind as we're heading straight into the peak of the fall shopping season,” Berean said.

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