Arc'teryx · advertising concept · not commissioned

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Every winter is an expedition.

An advertising concept for Arc'teryx. People buy a mountain jacket and wear it in the city: waiting for the 7:52 bus, walking to the office. The campaign calls that route an expedition. The hero stands among ordinary passers-by in full mountain gear, and the snowfall that gets in their way doesn’t get in his.

The concept grew out of 45 posts on Reddit from buyers and from people still choosing a jacket. They led to a hypothesis: if the brand itself gives a city dweller a reason to wear a mountain jacket every day, more people will add it to the cart. An A/B test on the product page checks the campaign. Details in chapters 02 and 03.

+3%target add-to-cart rate. A benchmark from the New Look and CAMILLA cases (Contentsquare), not a promise

45buyer posts from Reddit

6situations in which people choose a jacket

6placements: billboard, poster, city light, stories, website, email

Arc'teryx: 3:1 billboard on a building — **ARCTERYX_/_01.1**A billboard on a city building. Line: “The commute is a crossing.”

Arc'teryx: square poster at a bus stop — **ARCTERYX_/_01.1b**A square poster at a bus stop. Line: “He wants out. She’s ready.”

Arc'teryx: city light at a bus stop — **ARCTERYX_/_01.2**A city light at a bus stop, next to people waiting for the bus. Line: “The 7:52 is late. He’s fine.”

Arc'teryx: a story on a phone — **ARCTERYX_/_01.3**A story on a phone on the way to work, in the viewer with a Shop now button. Line: “He wants out. She’s ready.”

Arc'teryx: online store homepage on a laptop — **ARCTERYX_/_01.5**The online store homepage: the banner “The 7:52 is late. He’s fine.” above the fold, frames from the stories in the tiles. The mockup scenes are generated; the layouts are placed in them unchanged.

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A jacket without mountains

I collected 45 posts by Arc'teryx buyers on Reddit. The community itself talks city dwellers out of buying: “…isn't worth it unless you're actually using the outdoor functions”, “…go on a 1.2km hike and picnic on a sunny day and think they need an $800 shell to do it”. One buyer chose a different model even though he liked the colour: he couldn’t see when he would wear it.

Others say they wear the jacket every day: “worth it to wear everyday”, “Worth every penny. Use mine all the time.”

The brand talks only about function and is openly wary of city fashion. VP of Design Dan Green: “the moment we pivot and try to address the streetwear world, we'll totally lose it.”

Insight: a city dweller needs permission to wear a mountain jacket every day. The campaign gives it in the brand’s own language: a city winter is an expedition too.

System rules: a city in snowfall, the hero in mountain gear among ordinary passers-by, the line is an everyday situation told in expedition words, one slogan across all placements.

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How to test it

Test: an A/B of a block on the product page, the campaign frame against the current block. Metric: add-to-cart rate. Guardrails: returns don’t grow, and the average order doesn’t drop because people switch to cheaper models.

The benchmark is +3% to the add-to-cart rate, from the New Look and CAMILLA cases (Contentsquare). These are vendor cases without a sample size, so I take the baseline from the store’s analytics before launch and don’t promise someone else’s percentage.

This is a hypothesis; the test has not been run. Speculative concept, not affiliated with or endorsed by Arc'teryx.