Description:

The Background

In 2021, Kathmandu faced a huge challenge: the category it helped create was leaving it behind.

The problem wasn’t the product. Consumers knew Kathmandu made high-quality, functional gear. The problem was the brand. Kathmandu was almost entirely undifferentiated from its closest competitors—particularly MacPac.

The category’s biggest growth drivers were 18-35 year olds, but the average Kathmandu customer was north of 50. Next to more fashionable, youthful brands
like North Face, Kathmandu lacked brand appeal.

The Brief
Relaunch the Kathmandu brand and make it relevant to a younger audience.

The Thinking
The outdoor category had become a cliched dichotomy. Brands were either about conquering the mountain (masculine and technical) or saving the mountain (activist and casual). All brands seemed to amplify these archetypes making the outdoors seem like a place of technical extremism for rugged tough guys OR a worthy pursuit for environmentalists zenned out hippies.

Our research highlighted that people were looking for something else. They were craving a place where they could be themselves and feel happy and alive. And science showed the outdoors does just that.

The Concept
Studies have shown that exposure to nature has a measurable physiological effect on people and a transformative effect on their behaviour. When we spend time outdoors, our stress goes down, our empathy goes up, we feel happier and we become more creative.

This scientific truth led us to a new brand platform: We’re Out There and informed every decision in a joy-filled brand identity overhaul. Out with the conservative, expected and staid. In with a vibrant new world of bold, nature-inspired, colour-filled joy.

The Execution
Kathmandu’s brand relaunch broke all of the tried and tested outdoor category norms.
We flooded advertisements, in-store experiences, brand collateral and even new Kathmandu products with a consistently ‘out there’ look and feel that became a colourful celebration of getting outside.

Logo
We started by reinvigorating Kathmandu’s iconic twin peak logo. After remaining virtually unchanged for 30 years, we flooded the previously flat logo mark with vivid natural cues and adjusted its proportions to create greater impact.

Colour
We dramatically expanded Kathmandu’s colour palette to better reflect the diverse beauty of the great outdoors. Previously limited to a conservative, expected ‘natural’ green, we drew inspiration from fire, earth, air and water to create a kaleidoscope of secondary colours. The wider palette added a distinctive, youthful and joyous feel to the brand’s various touch points that completely broke from category norms and moved Kathmandu away from being a predominantly green brand.

Science shows the link of colour with people’s emotions, which we looked into when considering the tone of our new brand palette. A yellow that speaks to optimism, a pink that represents delight and joy, greens that you can associate with vitality and balance, as well as harmonious blues and spiritual purples.

Icons
We created a series of embroidered ‘back-pack travel badges’ that reinforce key messages and injected even more colour and playfulness.