Case Study: rebel Christmas – The Surprise Recruits
Because sometimes the best gift is a moment you’ll never forget.
Because sometimes the best gift is a moment you’ll never forget.
rebel is known for premium performance and high-impact campaigns. But at Christmas, the brief shifts. It’s not about elite athletes—it’s about everyday heroes. So for one joyful season, we traded grit for glee, and launched a hidden-camera campaign that brought pure magic to life on the shop floor.
The concept was simple: dress some of Australia’s most beloved sports stars—Sam Kerr, Mitchell Johnson, Laura Geitz—in rebel uniforms and let them loose on unsuspecting young shoppers. The result? The Surprise Recruits.
Shot with hidden cameras in a brightly lit rebel store decked out for Christmas, the campaign opened with cheerful narration: “We found some new recruits for the holiday season…” What followed was a heart-melting sequence of reveals. Sam Kerr helping a young girl pick out boots. Mitchell Johnson fielding cricket questions from a wide-eyed fan. Tears, laughter, disbelief—the full range of kid-sized emotion on display as they slowly realised who was standing in front of them.
From a production standpoint, the campaign required logistical precision: concealed cameras, staged customer interactions, and talent who could blend in just long enough to create the perfect moment of surprise. But more importantly, it delivered emotionally. When the reveals came, they landed. Real joy, real connection, real memories.
We closed the film with a spontaneous cricket match in the middle of the store—Mitchell Johnson caught out by a grinning 10-year-old. The message was clear: rebel isn’t just where you shop for sport. It’s where sport comes to life.
From a behavioural lens, the campaign used affective priming to build warmth and openness at the point of sale, while leveraging emotional contagion to amplify brand positivity through joyful storytelling. And by centring kids as heroes, it flipped the usual power dynamic—making the audience the star.
Results:
Campaign reached 7.3M Australians across social, earned media, and paid placements
3.7M video views in under two weeks, with above-average engagement and share rates
24% uplift in foot traffic to rebel stores in the final two weeks of December
31% increase in brand favourability among family demographics
Retail staff reported notable increases in spontaneous in-store mentions of the campaign
Why it worked:
Christmas isn’t just a sales moment—it’s a brand moment. The Surprise Recruits reminded Australia that rebel can be heartfelt, human, and hilariously fun. Sometimes the best gift isn’t a product. It’s a memory you didn’t see coming.