Icebreaker — Brand
ICEBREAKER
The Endless Pursuit of Progress
Putting performance, not sustainability, at the heart of a natural-fibre brand.
Problem
icebreaker, a VF Corporation brand, was so focused on the functional features of its merino wool and natural fabric technologies that it had lost sight of its brand. Users rated it highly, but non-users weren’t engaging, so icebreaker was turning into a commodity brand and losing share to cheaper, less sustainable competitors. Leaning on sustainability couldn’t fix that, because people don’t associate it with peak performance. They don’t pay top dollar for icebreaker because it’s natural. They pay because it helps them perform.
Truth
Performance isn’t a peak you reach. It’s progress you never stop pursuing. That’s true for icebreaker’s athletes, whose pursuit of performance doesn’t end at the summit or the season. And it’s true for icebreaker itself, which keeps pushing what natural fibres can do through fabric innovation.
The Big Idea
“The Endless Pursuit of Progress”
Response
To win consideration among athletes who didn’t know icebreaker, give retailers a better story to tell and stand out in outdoor apparel, we defined what performance means to icebreaker and built four things:
- A clear positioning: not just another outdoor apparel brand but a performance fabric innovation company, with natural fibres in every product.
- A brand platform: The Endless Pursuit of Progress, which put performance rather than sustainability at the heart of the brand.
- A design idea: Determination in Nature, which set the direction for the updated brand world.
- A campaign idea: Be More Merino. Outdoor enthusiasts are pulled between the natural life they crave and the “civilised” lives they actually live. On the mountain they feel at home, but nothing is more at home there than the merino sheep, built through evolution to stoically withstand the elements. The campaign tied icebreaker to that resilient attitude and launched in SS23 for new consumers in North America, EMEA, New Zealand/Australia and China.
The results
- Be More Merino launched globally across OOH, social, digital and in-store.
- The campaign drove brand awareness and incremental sales growth.
