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Patagonia Marketing Moments Marketing

2011: Patagonia prioritizes company transparency in ‘Footprint Chronicles’ effort

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

March 31, 2016 | 3 min read

To celebrate the Ad Club of New York's 120th anniversary, The Drum is inviting readers to share their favorite marketing moments from the past 120 years.

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Patagonia

Today’s marketing moment was chosen by Jim Scott, founder and managing partner at Mono. Below, find out why Patagonia’s ‘Footprint Chronicles’ is his favorite marketing moment.

In 2011, Patagonia launched Footprint Chronicles and set new expectations for brands and transparency. Rather than publish a blunt Corporate Sustainability Report, as most companies had been doing, Patagonia took consumers deep into its manufacturing via a rich digital experience, and let them see every step of the process so they could make informed decisions about the products they were buying.

In the cases where Patagonia was leading the industry, the brand was able to take advantage of their hard work to demonstrate that they ‘walk the talk.’ More importantly, though, in the places where Patagonia needed to do better, they would openly let consumers know that they needed to do better.

Even today, most brands focus on the former. But Patagonia gave both sides of the conversation equal opportunity to be heard and I think consumers fell even more deeply in love with the brand for doing so.

Footprint Chronicles is still a part of the Patagonia website -- further proof that they believe in these open conversations. Most brands would have seen the initiative as a 'campaign' -- Patagonia sees it as so much more.

See the full 120 Marketing Moments in the dedicated online section and find out how to purchase the exclusive book.

Patagonia Marketing Moments Marketing

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