On 12 October The North Face launched its fall brand campaign to pay tribute to all the adventure-related customer memories made during the outdoor wear brand’s 55-year history.
The integrated, multi-phase ‘It’s More Than A Jacket’ campaign calls on everyday explorers – as well as musicians RZA and Haim, plus athletes Conrad Anker and Ingrid Backstrom – to submit their own stories and photos for inclusion in a brand crowdsourced digital archive.
The outdoor apparel giant teamed up with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and TFN sports on the project and will bring the digital archive to life in 2022 through several participatory programs which will feature many of the key designs from the history of exploration and the stories behind them alongside everyday consumers’ submissions.
To kick-start the project and serve as an ‘on-ramp’ for entries, a 60-second hero film deployed across its online platform revolves around the idea that stories from the past are woven into the brand’s jackets and this lead ad is backed by supporting in-store and social media linked by the hashtag #MoreThanAJacket.
As well as the lead spot, the brand is also rolling out three extended films which will debut throughout the autumn and which feature adaptive athlete Vasu Sojitra, freestyle skier Jossi Wells and Will Stegar (the leader of the 1990 International Trans-Antarctica Expedition).
The new digital archive and museum program reinforce the brand’s wider mission of inspiring exploration and showing how adventures big and small lives through quality equipment. Plus, North face plans to leverage the consumer archive in future marketing.
“Our customers, the feats they have achieved, and the memories they have created are such a big part of our brand’s rich DNA,” said The North Face VP Of Global Brand Management Mike Ferris. “With this archive, alongside SFMOMA, we are memorializing the people, products and stories that continue to inspire our community and move the world forward.”
“With this campaign we are amplifying the idea that exploration is a mindset,” added Ferris. “It doesn’t just necessarily mean I’m out there exploring the mountains. Exploration for some people is creative expression, for some people it’s emotional and for other people it could be cultural, through travel, for example.”
Plus six new product collections will be released through early December which all reference and bring to life The North Face’s legacy of adventure.
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This North Face marketing push not only looks back at the brand’s six decade legacy, but also looks forward by inspiring new adventurers.
By teaming up with the company’s ‘hometown’ museum, the outdoor apparel brand founded in the Bay Area in the 1960s, seeks to add authenticity and gravitas to its brand in general and the initiative in particular as it seeks to connect more deeply with consumers and drive fan submissions with the lure of being included in a curated museum exhibition.
As a brand, The North face works to preserve the outdoors and encourage people to discover nature, but more recently it’s positioning and messaging have evolved to include making adventure more accessible to more consumers by broadening the very definition of exploration.
Indeed, this #MoreThanAJacket work builds on 2020’s new normal linked ‘Reset Normal’ campaign which included a $7m pledge to help diversify the outdoors through a global fellowship program with Emmy Award-winner Lena Waithe and climber Jimmy Chin.
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