The North Face goes global with Never Stop

One film for every market

On 30 September 2015, The North Face presented "Never Stop", which it described as the first global campaign in the company's history.¹ Created by the agency Mekanism, the campaign rolled out in the fourth quarter of 2015 across more than 10 markets, among them the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, China, Korea, Australia, Nepal and Singapore.^1,2

The decision behind the work was as much organisational as creative. Courtney Blacker, director of brand marketing at The North Face, described the change to MediaPost: "This is one cohesive storytelling initiative, running in all our markets."³ For a company that began as a single shop in San Francisco in 1966,⁴ it was the first time one story was meant to speak for the brand everywhere at once.

A line with a gap in it

The campaign took the brand's long-standing mantra, Never Stop Exploring, and removed its last word. The film's title, as listed in the trade press, was "Never Stop _______", leaving a blank for the viewer to complete.⁵ The device turned a fixed statement into an open one. Exploring remained the implied answer, but the line now invited other verbs. The blank let the brand keep its mantra while widening who could claim it.

The casting carried the same idea. The film combined North Face athletes, the climbers Conrad Anker and Paige Claassen, the snowboarder Xavier De Le Rue and the freeskier Tom Wallisch, with people whose exploration was not physical: a photographer, a marine biologist and a scientist.¹ Adweek listed shooting locations in South Africa, Yosemite, Antarctica, Burma, Nepal and Alaska.⁵

Blacker explained the intention: "while this is not a new message for us, it's an opportunity to change the way we express it." Exploration, she said, "goes beyond the physical, and takes in the outer edges of our intellectual, emotional and creative capabilities."³ Todd Spaletto, then president of The North Face, framed it for the release: "Whether it's the epic or the everyday, we want to inspire people to find the thing they love, and relentlessly pursue it."¹

The athlete and filmmaker Jimmy Chin gave the same reading from inside the brand's team: "'Never Stop' is about exploring your potential in whatever endeavor inspires you."¹ At Mekanism, Tommy Means served as executive creative director and directed the film himself.^2,5

What a global campaign does to a brand

Running one campaign in every market forces a brand to decide what it is beneath its regional differences. A North Face customer in Seoul, one in Munich and one in Denver have different weather, different shops and different reasons to buy. A single film has to find the layer they share. Mekanism's answer was the mantra itself, stripped to two words, which every market already knew.

The broadening of exploration served the same purpose. A campaign about summits alone would have spoken mainly to climbers. A campaign about pursuing whatever one loves, anchored by real expedition athletes, kept the technical authority in the frame while making room for the much larger audience that buys the brand without climbing. The athletes guarantee the claim; the photographer and the biologist extend it.

The media plan reflected that reach. A 75-second version ran on YouTube and other digital channels, while 30- and 60-second spots aired on network television, in live sports including "Sunday Night Football" and college games, and on Comedy Central.³ MediaPost reported that spending rose 40 percent over the previous year's campaign.³ Placing the film in sports and comedy slots carried the idea of exploring to viewers well outside the outdoor press.

Purpose as part of the launch

The launch came with a donation under the brand's continued partnership with the U.S. Department of the Interior. The North Face committed $100,000 to the 21st Century Conservation Service Corps, split equally between the Student Conservation Association, American YouthWorks, Conservation Legacy and Team Rubicon.¹ Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell was quoted in the release: "We appreciate our continued partnership with The North Face, this year highlighting conservation heroes who are making a difference in their communities."¹

Placing a conservation commitment inside a brand launch linked the open-ended line to something concrete. Exploration in the film could mean almost anything; the donation pointed it back at the outdoors that the brand's products are made for.

"Never Stop" did not change the mantra. It changed how the mantra was used. From 2015 the line was also the organising idea of one campaign shown in every market, and the blank in its title established the habit, continued by the brand's later campaigns, of asking what exploration could include beyond the mountain.