How we leveraged world class digital marketing strategies to help the contemporary menswear brand go global while staying true to its roots
For a long while, Scotland wasn’t a country that would immediately come to mind when you thought of pared-back contemporary fashion. The problem wasn’t talent, more that the cultural, gravitational pull of London was so mighty that most aspiring designers headed south to hone and practice their craft. The rule was: if you wanted to make it, you needed to move to England… and stay there. That was until people like Kestin Hare felt the tug in the other direction, back home.
Headed up by Hare and his partner Gemma, Kestin is a very Scottish brand. He was born and bred in Edinburgh and today the city is home to its head office – in the trendy Leith neighbourhood – and its flagship store in Stockbridge. Having worked for British menswear heavyweights like Margaret Howell, Nigel Cabourn, and Burberry, Kestin’s collections expertly reinterpret age-old menswear touchpoints – militaria, sportswear, workwear, and outdoor clothing – giving a striking, contemporary slant to well-worn silhouettes and styles. What makes Kestin really special, though, is how the references to its homeland are woven throughout; fabric choice, colourways, and fits all play a part in telling the story of Kestin and its provenance in Scotland.
Beyond the clothing, Hare has masterfully introduced a forward-thinking attitude to his fashion business. Started in 2014, the brand’s lifetime aligns with one of the industry’s most tumultuous periods. As recently as 2014, wholesale was king for any brand. But, savvily, Hare intuited the rising importance of strong direct-to-consumer channels and now presides over a brand that is still going from strength to strength a decade later.
When Kestin first approached nativve in 2023, the brand had been doing well. They were stocked in 90 stores internationally, including some of the biggest retailers. They were ready to move to the next stage, to grow and expand their direct-to-consumer channels and reach new markets internationally. They had recently worked with an agency but had taken their digital marketing back in-house after not seeing returns. While they had really strong creative and a strong sense of brand identity, they understood they were going to need more help to reach and convert potential customers and drive the profitability of their online channels.
We’ve worked with plenty of lifestyle and menswear brands to grow their D2C with multi-channel advertising. We know what it takes to grow a business and nurture a brand. Working with Universal Works since 2018, we’ve overseen significant growth on their Shopify store, managing a long-term digital advertising programme that has proven both lucrative and true to the brand’s integrity. With American brands and retailers that straddle outdoor and lifestyle — like Gramicci and Kavu — we’ve helped them establish a foothold in Europe, guiding on creative as well as broader digital marketing and advertising strategy.
A Thorough Audit and Performance Assessment
Our starting point for providing Kestin with digital marketing strategy support, as always, was a comprehensive audit of the advertising setup across every channel, combing through product catalogues on Meta and Google and making sure everything was properly optimised and connecting cleanly to the relevant merchant accounts.
Data was a particular focus. With privacy regulations continuing to tighten and third-party cookies in a state of flux, a clear data strategy provides a strong foundation for our ads. For Kestin, we established robust server-to-server integrations, ensuring attribution was accurate across all platforms, resulting in sharper, more reliable reporting and better targeting efficiency across the board.
An International Digital-Advertising Strategy
The initial trigger for Kestin working with nativve was a grant from the Scottish government intended to support Scottish brands and businesses in growing beyond the country’s borders.
Outdoor garments tested in Scotland, Scottish-made knitwear, and the distinct character of the brand’s homeland became recurring threads in how we positioned Kestin on digital ads to international audiences. On Google, we worked to improve the creative assets within Performance Max campaigns to better reflect the brand’s aesthetic. On Meta, we scaled brand awareness activity while being deliberate about how products were presented, ensuring the ads felt like Kestin.
Our approach to dynamic ads was shaped by Kestin’s strong design sensibility. Rather than defaulting to broad catalogue-based formats, we moved toward a more curated approach, hand-selecting products and leaning into the brand’s Scottish provenance.
A Reactive Approach
We’re proud of how creative and proactive we’re able to be with our approach to our clients’ digital marketing. As well as a strong always-on and collection-based ad strategy, we developed and trialled additional campaigns to bolster the main effort for Kestin.
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival attracts over three million visitors from all over the world to Kestin’s home city. We figured it was the perfect opportunity to present Kestin as one of the city’s proud exports, directly aligning the label with one of the elements most intrinsic to the brand: its heritage. Cooking up a localised campaign, we produced ads directing customers to the flagship store, driving significant footfall and exposing the brand to thousands of new customers from all over the world.
In another instance, we riffed off some incredible press coverage. Towards the end of 2025, Kestin’s Cuillin Puffer Jacket topped the Wall Street Journal’s list of Best Puffer Jackets. The highly involved testing process – which saw the jackets put through their paces in a ski resort’s snow room and a restaurant’s walk-in freezer – was a boon for the brand. We jumped on it, creating ads from screenshots that ended up as some of the most effective creative we ran that season. Despite the import tariffs in operation during that period, the jackets sold well stateside, with the ads achieving the highest click-through rates and lowest CPA of the season.
Lead Generation
We’re strong believers in the importance of email, and have had a huge amount of success growing audiences for Patagonia, Outsiders Store, and Millican. It’s the most cost-effective and consistent way to build a connection with your customers beyond that first purchase, an avenue for brand-building content, tailored automation, and messaging matched to individual tastes and buying preferences. And once you have a subscriber, the costs are low; you need only pay for the email client.
As well as suggesting a number of site improvements to increase organic sign-ups, we built ads to drive subscriptions from both new and returning customers. These used high-performing seasonal creative and promised early access to that season’s collection.
Results
Over several years of partnership, Kestin’s paid social and search activity has driven steady growth. Early results were dramatic, with online sales up 228% year on year and business-wide sales up 173%. While more steady recently, we’ve maintained the pressure, helping Kestin get the most out of their ad spend with a consistently strong ROAS, regularly exceeding 10.
2026 has built on that foundation. A standout summer month saw online sales beat target by 11%, growing 47% year on year with new customers up 35%. July followed with purchases up 122% and returning customers up 83%, pointing to strong retention.
Do you want to achieve these kinds of results with your Shopify store? Get in touch to discuss how we can help.
Read our interview with Kestin Hare.