Customer Loyalty Through Content Creation

The ethereal opening shot of Ben Knight and Travis Rummel’s “Denali” is one that depicts the misty and untamed Oregon coast punctuated by a lone Volkswagen Vanagon L with surf gear tumbling out of it. You can just barely make out lethargically intrigued dog-ears through the back window. It brings involuntary tears to my eyes even after I watch it for the fifth time.

Storytelling as Brand Identity

In this social media-driven age of marketing, a staggering number of brands are spraying content all over Facebook and Twitter and e-mail inboxes with a proverbial fire hose. Even when you earn a coveted “click rate,” most everyone in your audience is pressing ‘play’ with a healthy dose of skepticism. Not Patagonia fans. Know why? Because Patagonia partners with real artists and videographers, writers and adventurers to make storytelling the most important part of their brand’s identity.

Patagonia enables artists pursuing their fiery passions to be heard, to advocate positive social and environmental messaging and to do it in a beautiful way. People trust these motives and are moved by them. Ipso facto, they trust Patagonia as a company and believe in the product.

“Denali” is photographer / adventurer Ben Moon’s story, told through the personification of his canine friend about what it’s like to say goodbye. The short seven-minute film follows their story through cancer-diseased tribulation, elated climbing success, quiet, tented stargazing and beyond.

It ends with a thunderously reverberating line that left me immobile staring at my computer screen, but with a burning need to share. “There was this really smart scientist guy who thought that people could learn a lot from dogs. He said that when someone you love walks through the door, even if it happens five times a day, to go totally insane with joy.”

Fewer Ideas Make a Greater Impact

Joy Howard, the new Vice President of Global Marketing for Patagonia as of 2013 is a lady making a real difference in brand identity. Her sketched-out mantra: fewer ideas make a greater impact. And it’s working. “We’re really starting to see some fire as it takes shape, and at the heart of it is this realization that we believe that only unconventional business can make a difference,” says Howard in this interview with Fast Co.

Patagonia connects with consumers on a fundamental basis by creating content (or enabling the creation of content) like “Denali” for human beings, rather than SEO-driven machines. Patagonia exudes a real value-system and allows their consumers to connect with it; they allow us to be moved by it. While this new influx of beautiful content is infrequently product-driven, the $650 million dollar brand hardly has any trouble moving jackets off the shelves.

The Bottom Line

Patagonia, with Denali and other impactful artistic statements like DamNation and The Worn Wear Project employ grassroots marketing tactics on a large scale and use trust gained through these works of art as a vehicle to move product. Consumers are smart; they know a good jacket when they see one. What they want a company’s marketing campaign to do is to build trust by way of value system. Patagonia does just that.

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