The outdoor industry is notorious for misrepresenting what an explorer looks like.

Everywhere you look, there are pictures of men adventuring, exploring, summiting peaks, traversing cliffs, or skiing down steep slopes.

Understandably, in Fall 2017, research revealed women didn’t see themselves in the current representations of exploration. Women were both underrepresented and misrepresented.

To The North Face, this was a significant problem given women account for 60% of their sales and comprised almost half of their athlete team.

As one of the top outdoor brands, The North Face not only had a need but a responsibility to alter the perception of what an explorer looks like.

We wanted to celebrate adventurous and courageous female explorers, showcasing the incredible accomplishments of athletes, scientists, artists, and activists in order to inspire girls and women everywhere.

In April 2018, The North Face set out to change the face of exploration by telling the stories of women across the globe that were moving mountains through exploration. “Move Mountains” was a global initiative that focused on enabling the future of female exploration by celebrating creators, athletes, educators, and innovators.

We put relentless and unexpected explorers front and center—true role models who move mountains. These women were aspirational yet relatable and come from all backgrounds. We then invested in the future of exploration by creating a new Outdoor Adventure Partnership with the Girl Scouts of the USA, wanting to encourage girls and young women at a grassroots level to achieve their dreams of exploration. And we looked inward. We started organizational development efforts by partnering with Camber Outdoors & Paradigm for Parity.

In Spring 2018, The North Face introduced a global platform - “Move Mountains” - designed to change the face of exploration by telling inspiring and relatable stories of how women across the globe were / are moving mountains through exploration.

The North Face’s goal for “Move Mountains” PR was twofold:

To amplify the key insight that if young girls / women see more female explorers, then there can be more female explorers in the world. PR wasn’t seen as an additive channel, but rather as a key messaging platform.

Work with the larger team to help bring the best possible influencers to the table in order to ensure the message landed with the right audience.

Move Mountains was a global initiative rooted in empowering the next generation of explorers and included a multi-year outdoor adventure collaboration with Girl Scouts of the USA; a platform for sharing more stories of women in exploration; and a business commitment that impacts everything from representation in advertising to investment in product design, renewed focus on employee development, and ensured closure of the gender pay gap on the athlete team.

The creative aspect of the campaign was grounded in an anthemic long-form film and five shorts of modern-day explorers. The campaign told the stories of role models through the eyes of the people who they inspired. Supporting these pieces were print, out-of-home, user-generated content via #shemovesmountains, a speaker series with The New York Times, in-store / retail moments, events with female athletes and non-athletes, and The North Face’s first-ever women’s catalog.

We launched “Move Mountains” to expand our consumer base and seasonality.

Within the first week, we achieved 360M+ Total Impressions and 7M Unique Engagements.

Within the campaign’s first month, The North Face became the fastest growing women’s brand at wholesale, +35%, outpacing Patagonia and sports giants Nike and adidas, within one month.

The strong momentum continued through May, leading to an increase of 18% in sales. All without changing the product, distribution, or pricing.

When the campaign ended, we achieved the following:

15K impressions of #shemovesmountains

705M+ Total Impressions from launch through September 2018.