2015 Holiday Marketing: REI’s #OptOutside Reveals 9 Truths

Why REI’s cam­paign in the guise of an anti-cam­paign won’t work for all brands.

Lisa Lacy By Lisa Lacy. Join the discussion » 0 comments

Out­door retail­er REI’s announce­ment that it will remain closed on Black Fri­day could turn into a case study in hol­i­day mar­ket­ing. That’s because it is a bril­liant mar­ket­ing move cloaked with­in a nice ges­ture. So, in a way, every­one wins.


REI’s #OptOut­side clear­ly appeals to younger con­sumers who val­ue social good. While REI won’t make any mon­ey on Novem­ber 27, it still stands to make big gains before and after as a result.

The cam­paign itself is REI-spe­cif­ic in cer­tain respects. Oth­er brands should­n’t sim­ply copy REI to appeal to con­sumers’ good nature and/or make head­lines.

REI’s #OptOut­side also reflects aspects of U.S. cul­ture and con­sumer atti­tudes and behav­iors going into the 2015 hol­i­day sea­son.

Here’s what mar­keters can glean from REI’s anti-cam­paign.

1. Shrewdness Pays Off

#OptOut­side is a bold move that seems riski­er at first blush than it real­ly is.

The retail­er is shrewd­ly play­ing to its core audi­ence here, accord­ing to Rebec­ca Brooks, part­ner at Alter Agents. The brand not only came out a month ahead of Black Fri­day to get far ahead of the trend and look like a leader, but it has also launched an #OptOut­side microsite to fur­ther cap­i­tal­ize, she not­ed.

This isn’t a total­ly self­less act by REI. The brand like­ly won’t suf­fer as a result of its altru­ism.

In fact, accord­ing to David Water­man, senior direc­tor of earned media and SEO at The Search Agency, REI like­ly dis­cov­ered most of its hol­i­day sales were shift­ing to online sales after Black Fri­day any­way.

I’m sure they make a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of their annu­al rev­enue on Black Fri­day, but their mar­ket­ing team prob­a­bly got a hold of this data and fig­ured that mak­ing a stand against Black Fri­day would pro­vide them with enough free pro­mo­tion to make up for any Black Fri­day sales they would have had,” he said.

Fur­ther, Ash­ley Orn­dorff, direc­tor of mar­ket­ing for Visu­al Impact Group, called this is a viral social cam­paign that has cat­a­pult­ed brand aware­ness to record heights.

I would­n’t be sur­prised to see their online sales increase sub­stan­tial­ly this year due to their clos­ing retail stores and run­ning this cam­paign the way they have,” she said.

2. You Catch More Flies With Honey

Cam­paigns with an ele­ment of social good, such as #OptOut­side, could be the wave of the future.

Doing good results in good, which is good in and of itself, but also inspires con­sumer good will, which brands can cap­i­tal­ize upon lat­er.

3. Brands Must Fully Commit To Holiday Efforts

180LA Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer Stephen Larkin notes what’s even more spe­cial about #OptOut­side is the fact REI will be pay­ing its 12,000 employ­ees and will be clos­ing down its ecom­merce site that day as well.

REI is not just half-wet, they went all-in,” he said.

4. Holiday Campaigns Can Pay Dividends All Year

Jan­ice Pol­lard, senior mar­ket­ing man­ag­er at Hel­loWorld, says #OptOut­side could even result in increased loy­al­ty among intense­ly loy­al Mil­len­ni­als who are attract­ed by an effort like this.

5. Memorable Campaigns Push The Envelope

It’s like­ly there will be many shame­less attempts to cap­i­tal­ize on #OptOut­side that end in fail­ure for brands that are try­ing to cash in on the oppor­tu­ni­ty, said Cody Sim­monds, strate­gist at Struck.

That’s what sep­a­rates the Mil­len­ni­al from the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions: They are not swayed by impos­tors, but rather laugh and dis­miss such attempts,” he said.

Water­man agrees any oth­er brand that takes a stand against Black Fri­day this year won’t get the same lev­el of pro­mo­tion REI as they’ll mere­ly be seen as fol­low­ing REI’s lead.

6. Create Your Own Unique Holiday Blueprint

#OptOut­side works for REI because it fits with­in the brand ethos. But not all brands could, or should, pull this off.

If Toys R Us or Wal­mart were to do this, con­sumers would call bull­shit on this and fast. In fact, it would hurt their brands,” Larkin said.

Fur­ther, Water­man says REI should have prob­a­bly nev­er par­tic­i­pat­ed in Black Fri­day in the first place.

It goes against the ethos of their cus­tomer base,” he said. “So tak­ing a stand against Black Fri­day and push­ing an #OptOut­side move­ment is an easy win for a brand that pro­motes out­door liv­ing 365 days a year.”

7. Consumer Attitudes About The Holidays Are Shifting

#OptOut­side will gar­ner atten­tion because it taps into a cul­tur­al long­ing to reclaim deep­er human mean­ing dur­ing a sea­son that has been effec­tive­ly hol­lowed out by ram­pant con­sumerism, says Sarah Rubin­stein, senior strate­gist at Havas World­wide.

Oth­er brands sense this oppor­tu­ni­ty,” she adds. “Espous­ing com­mu­nion over con­sump­tion is a great way to build rel­e­vance with a cul­ture that is fatigued by hol­i­day shop­ping hype and news­casts of Black Fri­day vio­lence.”

John Sis­son, pres­i­dent of Wilde Agency, goes as far as call­ing it “mar­ket­ing gold”: “It’s the sto­ry of how a com­pa­ny treats its employ­ees. It’s a sto­ry of car­ing. It’s the sto­ry of putting oth­ers before your­self,” he says.

Orn­dorff agrees REI has made a move that tells its cus­tomers it sup­ports and respects fam­i­ly, which “makes [the] brand human and relat­able and sends a mes­sage that [it cares] about its employ­ees and cus­tomers.”

8. Brands Must Make More Meaningful Connections

Julie Lyons, pres­i­dent and COO of Zen­zi, says #OptOut­side goes deep­er than sim­ply con­nect­ing with Mil­len­ni­als, Gen­er­a­tion Z, or any spe­cif­ic demo­graph­ic, to reach­ing con­sumers on a sub­con­scious lev­el.

Tar­get­ing demo­graph­ics is no longer enough. As a result, many brands are real­iz­ing the impor­tance of psy­cho­graph­ics to con­nect with cus­tomers on a deep­er lev­el,” she said. “Backed by decades of proven psy­cho­log­i­cal research from renowned psy­chol­o­gist Shalom Schwartz, val­ues are the one con­stant about human beings that rarely change. They are the forces that moti­vate us and the way we pri­or­i­tize them speaks to the heart of our iden­ti­ty: where we work, what we buy, what we say.”

Lyons says #OptOut­side is one of a grow­ing num­ber of exam­ples of brands like Toy­ota, Expe­dia, Jaguar and Har­ry Win­ston, which she says are look­ing to con­nect with con­sumers with these shared val­ues.

9. Listen To Consumers & Nurture Relationships

REI made a move that many oth­ers should have made already – and it was pred­i­cat­ed on one sim­ple con­cept: under­stand­ing what social media is all about, said Kyle Reyes, pres­i­dent and cre­ative direc­tor of The Silent Part­ner Mar­ket­ing.

For the past cou­ple of years, a grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple have been latch­ing onto social media trends call­ing for busi­ness­es to be closed on Black Fri­day. And yet in the pur­suit of the almighty dol­lar, busi­ness­es have wide­ly ignored this,” Reyes said.

The real ques­tion now, he added, is whether busi­ness­es will become open and recep­tive to feed­back from con­sumers based on what’s trend­ing on social media.

Small busi­ness­es to large cor­po­ra­tions have large­ly failed at social media. Why? They use it to do noth­ing more than sell and to talk to cus­tomers, as opposed to engag­ing and hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions with them,” he said. “Social media isn’t about sell­ing, and busi­ness­es need to stop demand­ing a cal­cu­la­tion of the ROI of mar­ket­ing on social media. If the goal is con­ver­sions, they should lever­age Face­book Dark Posts. If the goal is cre­at­ing brand ambas­sadors, they need to do a much bet­ter job of nur­tur­ing rela­tion­ships with social.”


What do you think is the most valu­able hol­i­day mar­ket­ing les­son here?

Lisa Lacy

Written by Lisa Lacy

Lisa is a senior features writer for Inked. She also previously covered digital marketing for Incisive Media. Her background includes editorial positions at Dow Jones, the Financial Times, the Huffington Post, AOL, Amazon, Hearst, Martha Stewart Living and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

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