Unearthing the soul of an iconic outdoor brand.
Smartwool Brand Strategy, Design & Marketing Campaign Development
Fresh off a new logo design, Smartwool needed to take a fresh look at their overall brand. They needed help figuring out how to tell their story. Founded on, and still known primarily for socks. It was time for them to be known as an apparel brand.
Get comfortable, we’ll tell you a good brand story.
We learned quickly that people either love Smartwool, or they don’t know Smartwool. What do they love? Comfort. Comfort. Comfort. The challenge was, how do you tell a compelling story around “comfort”? We needed to imbue comfort with emotion. Connect what our audience is striving for with what our product provides. The ability to run farther, ski longer, or just the quiet confidence of being comfortable in your own skin.
A great logo in search of a brand.
Centered around our brand story, we developed a fully re-imagined brand positioning, platform and identity. We dove deep into their culture- which all started in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. As lovers of the outdoors, sports and fashion ourselves this was a dream. We joined in the go-to-market process, working closely with our partners at Smartwool to craft the presentations needed to market this evolved brand internally. We partnered with them to align their brand and product stories, and developed an installation and video for their three offices to socialize and unify those stories.
No better feeling.
The effort kicked off with two fall catalogs/lookbooks- one of which was in partnership with REI, followed by an out-of-home, print, digital, social and video campaign. Needless to say we love this brand and love their products, which is literally measurable by the percentage of Smartwool in our wardrobes.
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
