Creating art-driven visual marketing campaigns for Merrell’s US regional markets.

WhereNext’s creative studio + production house worked with our in-house communications agency to create a series of outdoor advertising and print campaigns for Merrell’s Austin, Seattle, Portland, and Asheville stores. We produced an art-driven approach that reduced production time and was flexible enough to adapt to regional markets and multiple formats. 

The Client Relationship and Campaign Goals

Merrell is one of the world's premier outdoor footwear brands. They hired our Seattle production company to create a series of art-driven outdoor advertising and digital campaigns for Austin, Seattle, Portland, and Asheville, North Carolina.

Each of these campaigns had a different goal: in Austin, the goal was to showcase the new edition of the world's bestselling hiking boot, the iconic Moab; the campaigns in the Pacific Northwest were aimed at encouraging people to get outside and explore nature again in the wake of pandemic lockdowns, and in the Asheville campaign was to promote the opening of a new Merrell store in the city. 

Learn more about our Austin campaign for Merrell: "Creating Art-Driven Regional Outdoor Advertising and Print Campaigns For Merrell."

Creating a Concept

The original, art-driven concept was created for the Moab shoe launch in Austin. The goal was to produce icon-based artworks, the style of which would later be easily applied to various North American cities. The pitch for the initial campaign showcased Austin’s favorite cultural pastimes, recreational activities, architecture, and wildlife. The intent was to celebrate the regional vibe in which locals and potential Merrell customers could easily relate and take pride. 

In designing each regional campaign's concept, our Art Director, Yenssy Gonzalez, worked alongside graphic artist Scott Partridge to mix Merrell's company branding and shoe images with an engaging panorama of local imagery. 

The Creative Process

For these art-driven campaigns, we follow a similar creative process. Scott and our creative team put together a photo mood board, choosing notable elements to represent each city or region. As you can see in the sample images, these elements include historical events, recognizable architecture, regional flora and fauna, recreational and cultural activities, and 'Easter Eggs' designed to prompt curiosity and exploration. 

Scott designed iconographic artworks for each of these elements, which are given to Yennsy and the production team to produce deliverables for each project, including layouts for billboards, social media videos, animations, postcards, in-store displays, hang tags, and even t-shirts. 

Campaign Deliverables

Although these graphic art campaigns all share a similar creative concept, the deliverables for each regional campaign varied. For Austin, Portland, and Seattle, the primary deliverables were layouts for billboards and in-store advertising, as well as social media assets, including animations and videos. 

For the Asheville store opening, we created billboard layouts and in-store ads and designed the new store's doors, an email campaign, postcards, Instagram and Facebook ads, and a series of t-shirts. 

Results

What's clear from our three regional campaigns with Merrell is that this art-driven format can engage and inspire audiences across the country and is easily applicable to a broad range of marketing collateral, from billboards to shelf talkers. Because there is no need for field production—video or photography—all of the work can be produced on a compressed time schedule, saving cost over a traditional photo or video-driven campaign. All of the existing iconographies can now be efficiently repurposed for future marketing needs. And new regional iconography can easily be generated without the need for field production.