INVITATION TO EXPLORE

The North Face is known for helping make adventure more accessible for explorers of all levels through technical products that embrace innovation. That drive to continuously elevate and evolve coupled with the need to bring the rich and amazing stories of The North Face to their consumers created a unique opportunity to reimagine the brand at retail on a global level. The opportunity to infuse the brand’s DNA, future vision, products and amazing athlete stories into every aspect of a tiered retail experience provided a platform to develop a strategy that guides consumers through a holistically considered experience. Beginning with the brand’s future vision and a reverent view of it’s DNA, a collectively crafted narrative was developed to inform the creative process and ensure that The North Face retail experience truly delivers on it’s aspirational project mission. The intent would be to build trust with the consumer to shift the perception of the brand and increase the value of the relationship. Extensive global retail research was leveraged to inform what the consumer needed from the brand functionally, but also emotionally to build deeper connections and a more meaningful understanding of the larger brand story. With insights from all brand geographies, product categories and functions, a unified objective became the guiding catalyst for an extensive development phase that would ensure the efficient use of project resources and set each team up for success when the individual work streams would come together in execution. Telling The North Face story at every level became the goal of our brand and environmental teams turning function into narrative, monumental moments into inspiration on a human level, and evolving the experience into an invitation to join the brand on a long-term journey. The development of the consumer journey roadmap included detailed planning of pragmatic considerations such as the organization of spaces regardless of tier, but also factored in more human aspects such as phycological safety during retail floor try-ons and pause moments that inspire and educate, or less expected sensory elements such as smell. These functional constructs became the skeleton for layers of brand storytelling that would bring The North Face to life through overt marketing elements, to 365 brand installations, initiative moments or informed fixture details that elevate the in-store experience to be in line with the product and brand marketing functions. With every element of retail developed to serve the unified objectives of The North Face teams, the brand has evolved to bring a common message and experience to consumers at every touch point. The result is a cohesive narrative that turns undifferentiated consumers into a community of explorers.