Marketing in the News: Never Just a Hike - North Face

    The Never Just a Hike campaign started rolling out last month for the spring and summer months

coming up. North Face is the brand running the campaign. I chose this event as my focus because

I am more interested in the apparel world than I am food, sports, etc. I really enjoyed the

commercials that came out and think they are enjoyable to watch, and if I was in the market for

some heavy duty gear and supplies I would look into shopping at North Face.

North Face is one of the biggest sports and outdoors brands in the United States, and they have

been steadily growing within the last 2025/2026 quarters. With it being one of the higher earning

companies under VF, the parent company, North Face has to continue growing so it can hold up

some of the weaker companies, like Vans. One of the ways they have continued to grow over the

years is by specializing, one article I found showed somewhat of a contrast in the amount of sales

done when North Face sold running shoes. This campaign from several years back did not do as

well because at that time the brand was in too many markets, since specializing on snow, hike,

and trail the people that are North Face lovers have bought a lot more products because every

product is usable to them, the one market of people. A main factor that is contributing to the

success of this year’s “Never Just a Hike” campaign.

The Value of shopping at North Face instead of rival companies is the quality of the items,

they have some of the nicest skiing jackets and pants on the market. They are also a well known

and trusted brand because they have been making outdoors clothes for so long. The biggest

difference between North Face and a lot of other companies is their trade in policies. They offer

pretty generous rewards for you to bring your old worn out items in so they can restore the items

and give you money off of a new item of your choosing.

Some marketing strategies that North Face is using in their campaign is a staggered release date

based on the “chapters” of their advertising. The rain portion of the new drop was released in

March when in a lot of places it is typically still raining. That was followed by the wind items

being released in early April, and lastly the sun products are set to be released in the beginning

of May. This strategy helps keep people shopping and excited instead of customers making one

large purchase and not coming back for a long time.

Another big piece of the campaign was the advertisements being directed towards Gen Z because

they are the ones mainly buying and being effected by trends and media today. North Face wanted

to get away from roads and trails, instead focusing their ad onto a group of people very interested

in the outdoors. I think this was a smart way to refocus on their early adopters and brand lovers

that will give enough attention to help their products spread further.

The challenge I believe the company is trying to overcome is the frequency of customers coming

back to their business. The niche of people that are into hiking and camping typically do not rebuy

things very often once they already have one item. Ex. I do not need a lot of hiking boots, jackets,

ski pants, etc. Although if they keep coming out with items that they can improve technically or

make the item look better people are a lot more likely to buy multiple of an improved version of

the item they already own. Additionally their upcycling program was a good solution to this issue

as well because people will turn back their items for a discount before they will go buy a new item

for full price.

I think their approach was smart because by picking a smaller audience to market towards, the

company will see a lot more sales than if they were marketing to the masses, and had normal

people doing average things in their videos.

If I was the brand’s manager I would have showcased more items in the campaign so that there was

a wider view of items becoming available. If the brand only shows their backpacks and jackets,

they are missing a large market of people looking for shoes, accessories, etc because they were not

shown or highlighted at all in the marketing. I think there is a small window for adding items in

the ads before it becomes too overbearing for the audience, but they could have incorporated more.

I enjoyed this assignment because I do not think I would have looked into articles written about the

        marketing of companies otherwise. I am glad that I got to look into it though because now I know

        more about the brand and will have more background to base my opinions and ideas from when

        North Face comes out with new campaigns going forward.

Sources:

March 2026-

https://en.4actionsport.it/never-just-a-hike-the-north-face-presents-the-hike-ss26-collection/

shopeatsurfxoutdoor.com- May 2023

Wall Street Journal- Jan 2026

https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/vf-revenue-rises-boosted-by-north-face-timberland-5a361081