Reset Normal - The North Face

Brief - A run of the mill brief to promote the Spring Summer 2020 Collection. 

Tension, Insight & Idea - In the depths of the pandemic in 2020 everyone was desperate to ‘get back to normal’. Our team’s insight was ‘normal’ wasn’t great to begin with. Inequality, poverty, pollution? Let's not go back there. Coupled with this not being a great time for The North Face to be selling outdoor clothes to an audience stuck at home, a different campaign formed. Why not use this extraordinary global moment to Never Go Back To Normal? I loved that thought. I always thought from an emotional storytelling point of view The North Face ethos and tagline: Never Stop Exploring, sold a kind of purpose driven restlessness. So I turned that tension into an actionable pledge-driven idea and renamed the campaign Reset Normal. We pitched it, ensuring The North Face itself would take action. A product campaign quickly morphed into a timely corporate wide initiative.  While we ensured the campaign featured that brand ethos, its logo and clothing throughout.

Work - Along with an anthem film, Alex Honnald and the North Face athletes each pledged positive changes in their personal lives in films and print that played across media. Working with Lena Waithe and Jimmy Chin, The North Face were inspired to launch a $7m Explore Fund Council as their corporate pledge to Reset Normal and increase equal access to the outdoors.

(We even proposed projecting the word RESET in the North Face font on the White House during the elections, but that one got vetoed. for obvious reasons).

Sid Lee - ECD Mariota Essery, CD Brad Getty, CD Ben Becker