The North Face turns 50 with Question Madness

Fifty years, one question

On 17 October 2016, The North Face marked 50 years since its founding in San Francisco with two announcements: a global campaign called "Question Madness" and the opening of its first New York flagship store, on Fifth Avenue.¹ The campaign was the first work of Sid Lee, which had won the brand's global account earlier that year, replacing Mekanism, which had held the account since late 2014 and created the 2015 campaign "Never Stop".²

The centrepiece was an anthem film of 1 minute 46 seconds, directed by Stacy Peralta through the production company nonfiction unlimited and set to Cat Stevens's "Miles From Nowhere".^3,1 It featured athletes from the brand's team, among them Xavier De Le Rue, Emily Harrington, Alex Honnold, Renan Ozturk and Angel Collinson.¹

Turning the outsider's view into the message

The campaign's idea started from how the brand's athletes look to everyone else. Tom Herbst, vice president of global marketing at The North Face, explained the premise: "Some people look at our athletes' expeditions and achievements, often realized at the coldest ends of the world or at the most dizzying and thin air of the highest peaks, and think they are quite mad." He named the turn the campaign made: "For the first time, we are questioning what some consider mad and challenging that perception."²

That sentence takes a familiar reaction to extreme sport, that the people doing it must be reckless, and uses it as the brand's own headline. Instead of denying the charge or softening it, The North Face asked its audience to question it. The madness was presented as the visible surface of something else: preparation, judgement and a very personal definition of success. The production notes describe the film's subject as "the duality of adventure: the pain and perspective".³

For a brand built on expedition authority, the framing carried a specific benefit. It kept the most extreme athletes at the centre of the brand while making their motives, not their danger, the subject of the film.

Who the campaign was for

Herbst was explicit that the audience was wider than the athletes in the film: "This campaign was created for all consumers, with a focus on inspiring the next generation of people to experience success, joy and understanding on their own terms."² Todd Spaletto, then president of The North Face, connected it to the anniversary: "This campaign comes at a time in our brand's history when exploration, of all kinds, matters more than ever. We rally behind and celebrate those who have the courage to take on the unknown and define success in their own way."⁴

The skier Ingrid Backstrom, one of the brand's athletes, put the same logic in commercial terms: "They've always been focused on what athletes want. They figure if athletes are using the product on Everest, then it will be good enough for people on the street in New York."⁴ The athlete is the proof, and the street is the market.

Both statements land on the same phrase: success on one's own terms. That is the bridge between the summit and the customer. The North Face had widened exploration a year earlier with "Never Stop"; "Question Madness" widened it again, from the act of exploring to the right to define its purpose for oneself.

A digital launch for an anniversary

The film launched on Facebook rather than on broadcast television, and rolled out in more than 16 markets in the fourth quarter of 2016, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.^2,1 Viewers were invited to share their own boundary-pushing stories under #QuestionMadness.¹

The North Face used its 50th to look at motive rather than at its own past, and it chose a channel where the audience could answer. The Fifth Avenue flagship gave the same idea a physical form, with an interactive climbing wall, community seating and a custom embroidery service.¹ Its opening was paired with store exclusives made with New Era and with Lot, Stock and Barrel, and a performance by the Brooklyn musician St. Lucia.⁴

The craft was recognised in the industry. The anthem won a Bronze Lion for film craft editing at Cannes Lions the following summer, for the edit by Eric Argiro at Union NY.³

Where "Never Stop" had opened the brand's mantra, this campaign gave it an attitude: respect for the people who go further than seems sensible, and an invitation to everyone else to decide what further means for them.