“Be an Outsider” is an invitation to the world’s most inclusive club. Where there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet. Our mission with the campaign was to give more people more reasons to love L.L.Bean. It had always been known as a brand with a strong connection to the outdoors. But over the years, the brand lost its way and strayed from its values.

Our target audience for the campaign was known as the “Outdoor Family Enthusiasts.” They’re the people who value time spent together, are energized by the outdoors, and value function as well as style. Our tagline came with built-in branding and perfectly captured the sentiment of our strategic mission statement: L.L.Bean is made for the shared joy of the outside.

Because on the inside, we’re all outsiders. And if it’s outside, we’re all in.

We launched our campaign with a New York Times ad that could only be read outside in the sunlight. Every piece after that was an open invitation to “Be an Outsider.” Throughout all campaign executions, a consistent design element was the “Be an Outsider” visual lockup, as well as an animation for video and digital that began with the L.L.Bean brand name and transitioned the “Bean” into the beginning of “Be an Outsider.” Every element we utilized needed to convey a modern, energetic and diverse look/feel/tone, depicting the simple, enticing joys of being outside together. Whether the creative was on TV, on social media, in print or elsewhere, we wanted to leave people feeling like they’d been invited to the world’s most inclusive club: the outdoors.

The sunlight ink ad was groundbreaking for the category and served to capture our audience’s attention by being innovative while delivering the brand message. In addition to paid exposure in the New York Times, the ad was covered nationally in 509 publications across broadcast, newspaper and online outlets, reaching over 727 million consumers, earning approximately $700,000 in added value — equivalent to 3x the initial investment. That was only the beginning of our campaign; with a budget of over $1 million, we kicked off a new brand launch across all media touchpoints (radio, broadcast, OLV, social, OOH and print). From a volume perspective, we produced 150+ social/digital executions and 16 spots for online and broadcast. Our goal was to give more people more reasons to love L.L.Bean, and the numbers proved we were heading in the right direction.