Brands Are Using Tariff Refunds To Boost Marketing Spending.

Of the billions of dollars advertisers have received as refunds resulting from February’s Supreme Court ruling striking down President Trump’s global tariffs on imported goods, a significant portion is going to marketing and promotion during the holiday season, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Among the brands benefiting from tariff refunds is Warby Parker, which is using the money to invest more in its launch of Intelligent Eyewear, a line of AI-powered glasses developed in partnership with Google and Samsung. “With regards to the investments in the business and integrating Intelligent Eyewear—that’s fully funded by the tariff benefits,” Chief Financial Officer Adrian Mitchell says. 

“Within marketing, we plan to meaningfully increase our total brand and media investments, which will be shared with our partners as we scale Intelligent Eyewear campaigns.”

Likewise, Levi Strauss plans to use a large part of its refunds for holiday campaigns. “We redeployed $60 million out of the $80-odd million from tariffs that we received,” Chief Financial and Growth Officer Harmit Singh says. “I would say a third is marketing, a third is distribution and logistics, and a third is promotional activities.” 

Other brands reporting putting its millions of dollars in refunds toward marketing include Macy’s, consumer goods maker Kimberly-Clark, women’s clothier J. Jill, footwear retailer Genesco, and e.l.f. Beauty, with expenditures ranging from $13 million for J. Jill to Macy’s $116 million.

“Our tariff refunds are being reinvested first to support our value proposition through lower prices on ~10% of our portfolio, then to support marketing across our portfolio of brands, highlighting our holy grail innovations,” e.l.f. Brands President Kory Marchisotto says. “Marketing is one of our best-performing investments.”

While the refunds may improve company earnings for the fiscal year, little has been said about using the cash windfall to cut consumer prices during the holidays. Additionally, according to Madison & Wall founder Brian Wieser, many of these brands’ announcements about using refunds to defray marketing costs are likely designed to reassure Wall Street that companies will reach their financial goals, and don’t necessarily signal more spending than was already planned. “It’s almost more of a messaging thing than a question of whether the tariff refunds are really contributing meaningfully to the proportion of their budget that they do spend on marketing,” Wiser says. “In an established business, you don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘I can’t wait to increase my budget’. You’re a hero when you cut your budget.”