With the large increase in the popularity of social media, many of us are hooked to our phones. We search instagram for the newest trends and follow our friends lives through their snapchat stories. Like many outdoors brands, L.L. Bean prides itself in making products that allow families to spend more time outside together. Their recent campaign is linked to their new tagline, "Be an Outsider".
L.L. Bean published a full-page newspaper ad that can only be read outdoors. The page looks like a blank page with the words "Just bring this outside" scattered along the bottom of the page. The ad, made with photochromic ink, will turn colors when exposed to UV rays. This in turn exposes the brand manifesto that encompasses their idea of going outside.
The creative director, Teddy Stoecklein, states that the manifesto serves "as an invitation to all people to join L.L. Bean outside, because outside is where we belong". This approach is an amazing and creative way to turn heads. In this campaign, you actually have to go outside to see the manifesto, which in turn forces people to wonder what will happen to the page when they take it outside. Like the title of the campaign, their objective is to get people to go out and enjoy the outdoors. Through this manifesto, they are inviting anyone to "join us" outside.
The brand manifesto is such a powerful statement which captures the spirit and vibe of the company. I think that L.L. Bean did a great job in creating an outdoor-sy scenario where everyone is welcome. Instead of using those classic mountain climbing, skiing, and skateboarding images, they decided to use a blank white page with only text. Even the title, "Be an Outsider" is such a bold statement that creates buzz. I never really thought about L.L. Bean as a strong outdoors brand. However, after seeing their campaign, I would definitely associate them in that category. We learned about the power disruption in our site visit to TBWA/Chiat/Day. How is L.L. Bean disrupting the space? They had taken a somewhat overused convention of the ideal outdoors imagery. As a solution, they physically made their audience go outside. If you're lucky enough to get your hand on one of these ads I'd go try it out!
Read more about the ad here.