Redefining brand strategy for the iconic backpack.
JanSport Brand Strategy, Campaign Development, Production & Implementation
We have taken JanSport around the world to create art, make music, and explore the urban culture of cities like Rio, Sydney, San Francisco and New York. We’ve garnered millions of social media, digital and offline engagements, billions of impressions and an enormous amount of packs sold. With this effort we focused our brand strategy on putting the attention back to the original genius of JanSport: the packs themselves.
Redefining a modern icon.
For many—if not most—JanSport brings to mind those nostalgic days of homework and notebooks. The Trapper Keeper. The lunchbox. For almost everyone in the world, JanSport is backpack. Like Kleenex is facial tissue. But this success brings with it a brand strategy catch-22: how can we redefine an icon for modern consumers, and break their associations?
Designed for impact.
Our media ran throughout North America, with digital outdoor in New York City and a feature in Monster Children magazine. Our content marketing strategy emphasized social media marketing, across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The effort was a huge success, garnering hundreds of millions of impressions, tens of millions of engagements and an average of 2x year-over-year increase in ROI.
Impressions
119,979,707
Engagements
7,667,110
Conversion Rate
3.2x ↥
Social Engagement
4.6x ↥
Direct Purchases
2x ↥
A content strategy for each product.
Our overall brand strategy was to create separate content for each of four pack lines—SuperBreak, Hatchet, Digital, and the Right Pack. Each distinct, but tied together under with a call-to-action fundamental to JanSport: “Go.” Simply put, JanSport packs let you go where you want to, and bring what you need to get there.
SuperBreak became a verb that lives in the most important moments in our lives. The Hatchet pack allowed explorers to reach forgotten places and urban heights. The Digital pack’s background was always blurred, as if caught in motion. And Right Pack content used video to blend image and movement.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
