The Power of Customer Storytelling Campaigns

“Don’t build a marketing team. Build a media company for your niche,” Dave Gerhardt, chief brand officer for Drift, likes to say. More and more companies are doing just that. Especially in the outdoor industry. 

In October alone, three outdoor companies—The North Face, Houdini, and Kari Traa—have launched campaigns that focus on customer storytelling. 

The North Face just launched its #MoreThanAJacket campaign for people to share memories of their gear. North Face athlete Conrad Anker’s Instagram post includes, “In 1978 I purchased a Sierra Parka from The North Face. Little did I know how many experiences this jacket would be part of. From brisk winter days to a failed attempt on Mount Robson to the Kichatna Spires, my Sierra Parka kept me cozy. Spilled ramen soup, pine sap from a tree I rested on and the patina of sweat & grime made it mine.” 

Reading that, you feel how a jacket isn’t just an accessory but is part of you and your adventure. It even literally holds experiences from it. 

The North Face also encourages its customers to post their own More Than A Jacket stories for a chance to be featured at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of the North Face’s first-ever crowdsourced archive. With this initiative, the North Face is exploring new marketing terrain. 

Houdini has a similar campaign called The Storyteller. With the hashtag #WearYourStories, it’s collecting customer stories of their time in Houdini jackets. The company is sharing some stories on their site.

Kari Traa’s campaign Girls Will Be Girls is more unique. It features stories from women who’ve faced inequality in the male-dominated outdoor industry and how they’ve pushed back against gender norms in their outdoor sports. 

I hope this trend of story-based marketing sticks. Beyond being great for brand efforts, it’s moving and beautiful. Companies just need to be wary of simply copying storytelling campaign ideas from their competitors. The campaigns lose their magic when they seem too similar. Instead, they need to feel authentic to the brand.