Back to School: A Cultural Charge Moving from Society to Brand
Back to School with Diorling by Baby Dior
September carries a strong symbolic weight. The very word back to school reactivates collective memories: new backpacks, pristine notebooks, the tension between excitement and anxiety. It endures as a cultural marker, a Western “new year” where routines, desires, and identities are reset.
In France, 65% of parents say September is when the entire family reorganizes its life. In the United States, it stands as the second biggest retail peak of the year. Different contexts, same mechanism: September imposes a social tempo.
In 2025 this ritual feels different. French consumer confidence has fallen, growth is stagnating, households are tightening their budgets. In the U.S., spending on back to school has softened but remains colossal. Across both markets, the season is lived as a moment of tension: a necessary projection, yet in an anxious climate.
Within this backdrop, brands experiment with new approaches. Carrefour, with Publicis Conseil, launched the first fully AI-generated back-to-school campaign. Beyond the tool, the insight is sharp: the season is not only about low prices, but about giving every child the chance to express their personality, even through school supplies. A simple, emotional, almost universal message: “you’re not just choosing pens, you’re choosing how you’ll express yourself this year.”
At the opposite end, Dior staged a hyper-stylized back-to-school campaign for Baby Dior. The press praised its elegance. Yet it raises a question: at what point does this slip into adultifying children, immersing them too early in the codes of status and luxury? The concern resonates with last year’s debate when very young girls performed adult beauty rituals at Sephora, an acceleration of adult codes colonizing childhood.
These two campaigns illustrate divergent visions of the same ritual. Carrefour frames back to school as accessible and expressive, rooted in inclusion and recognition. Dior positions childhood within adult codes of distinction, seductive, yet unsettling. Between these poles lies the strategic space: to frame September as a moment where society renegotiates its vision of childhood, of self-projection, and of the future.
This is where Touché positions its expertise: decoding the invisible rituals that structure our lives, reading the cultural tensions they crystallize, and guiding brands to craft narratives that reach beyond commercial opportunity. Back to school is a symbolic, collective stage that reveals our relationship to time and identity. Brands that learn to read it gain more than visibility, they inscribe themselves in the cultural story of society.