2022 Winner
GoldBest Integrated Campaign - Budget Under $250,000
SilverBest Cultural Insights
Atmosphere
"Camping Rituals"
Touché!
"Camping Rituals"
Touché!
In Summer 2021, when the pandemic closed borders, the province of Quebec saw a surge in tourism, mainly through outdoor activities such as camping. Forced to vacation closer to home, this trend created a new wave of campers, who were discovering camping for the first time.
Recognizing this spike in popularity, Atmosphere, one of Quebec’s top outdoor equipment retailers, wanted to increase its stores awareness and ultimately increase overall sales, both online and in-store to drive traffic, and, ultimately, sales. The key goal was to win market share from competitors.
To guide them, it recognized a growing tension between camping veterans and the newly initiated. On one hand, veterans feel “invaded” by new campers. They think they leave equipment stores empty, take all the space in the parks, and don’t understand common camping etiquette (e.g. don’t leave any waste behind!). On the other hand, new campers feel intimidated, as camping has a high barrier of entry. There’s a lot to learn, equipment is expensive and, as newbies, they feel excluded from the bigger camping community.
However, it spotted one thing that all campers have in common: rituals. From memories of cold spaghetti meals to hiking trips rewarded with S’mores by the fire, rituals can be created by anyone -- you can have one whether you’ve been camping for weeks or years, or your tent costs $50 or $500.
Informed by this insight, it would tell campers new and old that Atmosphere understands their needs and has everything they need to relive rituals or create new ones.
It would unite experienced and new campers by encouraging veterans to pass on their
rituals to the newly initiated – a transfer of knowledge, experience, and inspiration that would allow the next generation of campers to begin their adventures and, as a result, become ‘real’ campers.
To do this, it would resolve the conflict in two steps. First, it would connect with veterans.
To reach experienced campers, it partnered with Salut Bonjour, one of Quebec’s
top morning TV shows.
It conceived an integrated activation where the show host asked his audience to share their top camping rituals on a social media post, which gathered hundreds of comments and shared videos in only a few days. The goal was to tap into their rich experience in outdoor and camping to serve as inspiration for the newly initiated. These user-generated rituals were then broadcast on the morning show, reaching over 290,000 viewers. On top of the activation, it launched a user-generated campaign and contest on Atmosphere’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, inviting participants to submit their own rituals via photos or videos.
In phase two, it targeted new campers, leveraging key data signals to build a customized audience segment for “new campers.”
It collected data from keyword searches related to camping beginners (eg. “Top 10 camping essential gear”) and tracked Google Analytics signals based on the type of products they purchased (e.g. entry-level products). It also tracked location-based signals to see where these people were coming from (e.g. in the vicinity of the Quebec province or beyond).
After populating this audience, it targeted them with social media and display ads sharing the best rituals from veteran campers in social and digital.
Finally, it closed the sales loop by retargeting these “new campers” with specific Atmosphere products related to the most common rituals shared by veterans, which tapped into the objective of showing what a wide range of products Atmosphere held.
While Atmosphere’s competitors focused on the functional and rational attributes of their camping gear, such as assortment, expertise, and pricing, Atmosphere tapped into the most powerful emotional association there is: memories.
Fueled by an emerging insight, it was able to unite the entire camping community around their campaign and close the gap between new and old campers. To do so, they leveraged a unique partnership with Salut Bonjour to reach veterans combined with a robust data strategy to
reach new campers.
The rituals’ activation was a resounding success – boosting camping category in-store sales by +40% and online sales by +161% YoY. Through the targeting tactics, it reached more than 2M Quebecers (out of 8M) with the messages. Its social posts generated more than 10,700 engagements, including more than 2,800 comments and more than 900 shares.
Thanks to this awareness, traffic increased to Atmosphere’s physical and digital stores with an increase of 12% of new user traffic, where people spent more than ever.
Overall, and more importantly, the campaign positioned Atmosphere as a key outdoor retailer that knows its clientele, thanks to an emotional and insightful UGC campaign. The insight around rituals was so strong that the client has now decided to use it as a pillar in its communication strategy for all of Atmosphere’s 2022 campaigns.
Recognizing this spike in popularity, Atmosphere, one of Quebec’s top outdoor equipment retailers, wanted to increase its stores awareness and ultimately increase overall sales, both online and in-store to drive traffic, and, ultimately, sales. The key goal was to win market share from competitors.
To guide them, it recognized a growing tension between camping veterans and the newly initiated. On one hand, veterans feel “invaded” by new campers. They think they leave equipment stores empty, take all the space in the parks, and don’t understand common camping etiquette (e.g. don’t leave any waste behind!). On the other hand, new campers feel intimidated, as camping has a high barrier of entry. There’s a lot to learn, equipment is expensive and, as newbies, they feel excluded from the bigger camping community.
However, it spotted one thing that all campers have in common: rituals. From memories of cold spaghetti meals to hiking trips rewarded with S’mores by the fire, rituals can be created by anyone -- you can have one whether you’ve been camping for weeks or years, or your tent costs $50 or $500.
Informed by this insight, it would tell campers new and old that Atmosphere understands their needs and has everything they need to relive rituals or create new ones.
It would unite experienced and new campers by encouraging veterans to pass on their
rituals to the newly initiated – a transfer of knowledge, experience, and inspiration that would allow the next generation of campers to begin their adventures and, as a result, become ‘real’ campers.
To do this, it would resolve the conflict in two steps. First, it would connect with veterans.
To reach experienced campers, it partnered with Salut Bonjour, one of Quebec’s
top morning TV shows.
It conceived an integrated activation where the show host asked his audience to share their top camping rituals on a social media post, which gathered hundreds of comments and shared videos in only a few days. The goal was to tap into their rich experience in outdoor and camping to serve as inspiration for the newly initiated. These user-generated rituals were then broadcast on the morning show, reaching over 290,000 viewers. On top of the activation, it launched a user-generated campaign and contest on Atmosphere’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, inviting participants to submit their own rituals via photos or videos.
In phase two, it targeted new campers, leveraging key data signals to build a customized audience segment for “new campers.”
It collected data from keyword searches related to camping beginners (eg. “Top 10 camping essential gear”) and tracked Google Analytics signals based on the type of products they purchased (e.g. entry-level products). It also tracked location-based signals to see where these people were coming from (e.g. in the vicinity of the Quebec province or beyond).
After populating this audience, it targeted them with social media and display ads sharing the best rituals from veteran campers in social and digital.
Finally, it closed the sales loop by retargeting these “new campers” with specific Atmosphere products related to the most common rituals shared by veterans, which tapped into the objective of showing what a wide range of products Atmosphere held.
While Atmosphere’s competitors focused on the functional and rational attributes of their camping gear, such as assortment, expertise, and pricing, Atmosphere tapped into the most powerful emotional association there is: memories.
Fueled by an emerging insight, it was able to unite the entire camping community around their campaign and close the gap between new and old campers. To do so, they leveraged a unique partnership with Salut Bonjour to reach veterans combined with a robust data strategy to
reach new campers.
The rituals’ activation was a resounding success – boosting camping category in-store sales by +40% and online sales by +161% YoY. Through the targeting tactics, it reached more than 2M Quebecers (out of 8M) with the messages. Its social posts generated more than 10,700 engagements, including more than 2,800 comments and more than 900 shares.
Thanks to this awareness, traffic increased to Atmosphere’s physical and digital stores with an increase of 12% of new user traffic, where people spent more than ever.
Overall, and more importantly, the campaign positioned Atmosphere as a key outdoor retailer that knows its clientele, thanks to an emotional and insightful UGC campaign. The insight around rituals was so strong that the client has now decided to use it as a pillar in its communication strategy for all of Atmosphere’s 2022 campaigns.
Credits
Touché!Atmosphere
Canidé