"Yet anti-consumerism is clearly helping to build the Patagonia brand. Indeed, the company is seeing double-digit annual growth."
My mind spins on that statement. Kudos to the marketing genius who increases sales (= consumers) by convincing customers that they're being "anti-consumers". Companies that use group/political identity (in their case perhaps even 'cult') as part of their scheme take quite a risk in doing so, but Patagonia is one of the companies that has proved remarkably effective and successful in that genre -- consistently over a long time.
The wild part, in the grand scheme of things, is that their message is significantly true. They're not convincing consumers that they're being anti-consumers; they're actually consuming less by buying more durable goods that last longer and have a better lifecycle.
It's not only true, the truth of it makes it incredibly authentic, and if there's anything that appeals to the market these days, it's authenticity.
The supposedly 'crazy idea' that sustainability is, in fact, economically sustainable and even beneficial is a pretty amazing thing. It's a way to be more successful; it is not a cost. For more, check out Bill McDonough's excellent book "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things" -- http://www.mcdonough.com/speaking-writing/cradle-to-cradle/
Side note, I grew up extremely close to Patagonia for about 25 years (literally—went to kindergarten there), my father was highly influential in the leadership and direction of the company, helped come up with the "Don't Buy This Jacket" campaign and led many sustainability efforts. Ask me anything.
Do you have any insight into how dominant is Yvon Chouinard as a guiding visionary within the company? He's hardly a spring chicken anymore and it would be a pity to see the company relax this focus after his passing.
In my experience his influence was strong but well delegated. The culture and leadership of the company was more important, and would live on without him. There are a lot of people who were attracted to Patagonia because of the way it was run, and the reason it existed, and they want to see it continue with the same focus. It's not perfect (and neither is Yvon, of course), but it seems to be on solid footing, and I expect it to be even after he leaves.
I'm intrigued by motivation: did they set out to make great clothing, or did it prove to be the most profitable (and morally acceptable to the owners) way to make money with which to do what they really wanted to do?
And did they have pointers that this approach (from "Don't Buy this Jacket" to now) would work, or was it a gamble that could've taken down the company if it hadn't paid off? Trying to apply it to my online business, I'm struggling to even start thinking this way.
I think above all they set out to make great products, period. Yvon seemed to put money second, or at least realized that it was a side-effect of doing the right thing.
There was internal debate about "Don't Buy This Jacket." I heard some of it, and it was an amazing show of cultural strength that won out loud and clear above the concerns. It was a re-commitment to Patagonia's roots and values, and they really believed in it. There was not really a concern that it was going to fail, nor did it matter for them. They're a private company for a reason; they can do things like that for a greater purpose beyond short-term shareholder value, and because of that it makes a sort of self-perpetuating positive feedback cycle of value internally. The company believes in what it does, and does what it believes is right, and it's no accident that that genuineness and authenticity resonates with a market seeking quality.
The realization that may be relevant to your business is that authenticity and genuine value and quality are all different names for the same thing. When they all line up, there's no gambling—there's just a clear vision of what's right for the customer, the company, the employees, and ultimately, the world. There aren't actually trade-offs if you don't create them.
It may sound lofty, but getting all those things to line up really is the answer to many elusive and complex problems in business. Your market needs to both know about and understand your company and the value it provides in the most honest way possible. Likewise, you need to understand and respect your market as close to reality as possible, and balance leading and following it. At the same time, your employees need to understand that same value and be enabled to provide it proudly and without barriers, which is what most companies call 'culture' and find by accident or not at all. Be brave with the truth, and your customers, employees, and the world will respect you for it.
I think that's why Patagonia launched this campaign so proudly. There was never really any risk involved, since it was simply an external projection of what they already believed strongly: the principles and values and most importantly knowledge that were already extremely in sync internally. Since they knew their internal representation of the world was the right one (a human truth, larger than themselves), they were proud to share it with their customers. Find those things that are bravely true and that you're proud to share with the world, and even when other companies with less knowledge and less confidence might think it risky, you'll know better.
That said, there's a lot that needs to happen before that. Patagonia wasn't taking a giant risk with that campaign because it was already ingrained in their culture and way of business. They had something they believed in strongly, that they had proven and trusted over thirty years, and they just articulated it in a new way to new people.
Two pieces. First, build your culture toward something you, your employees, and your customers can believe in strongly and truthfully. Understand your value and make it tangible. Second, look deeper: see your company, your customers, and your employees as a complex system that needs profound human leadership toward a common goal to reach a confidence that makes the big leaps into easy and confident single steps.
> They're not convincing consumers that they're being anti-consumers; they're actually consuming less by buying more durable goods that last longer and have a better lifecycle.
But the company is also renewing the moral legitimacy of free markets. Depending on your point of view, you might think that turning left-leaning consumers into market fundamentalists is a bad thing even if the marketing about the product is true.
I have nothing to ask in the way of questions, but I do feel compelled to ask you to pass on a "thank you" for the company opening an outlet in Dillon, MT. I grew up in Bozeman, and I love that Patagonia would open a store in a place that most businesses would ignore wholesale.
Ha, I'll try to pass it on. Patagonia has a lot of roots in Bozeman. I remember visiting once, and they had a warehouse and office of about 10 people for a period in the 90's. Good folks.
It may sound strange, but it makes sense. Imagine a phone maker advertising that their phone lasts 6 years without needing replacing. Their market share could grow while the overall number of phones sold shrank due to increased longevity.
Just because there's a local (Patagonia) increase in a metric (sales) doesn't mean there isn't a global decrease.
Patagonia could reasonably gain market share (number of people wearing Patagonia) while lowering sales-per-person with the net outcome being higher sales overall.
This only makes business sense if consumers _want_ durable goods and 'punish' businesses adequately that make shorter lived products. Consumers have to want it enough and have enough information in order to provide the correct market pressure.
Anti-consumerism and growth for this company don't have to be mutually exclusive (though there is natural tension between them). I wasn't very familiar with them before—I assumed they were an expensive brand for people with more money than sense—but now I'm wondering if I should consider them when I buy the jacket I've put off purchasing for the past couple of years. There's definitely a market for durable, repairable goods (see the BIFL subreddit for examples), and Patagonia's growth could be coming at the expense of more traditional brands.
Since you asked: You should consider them. Their stuff is generally well-designed and holds up. I still use Patagonia shells and jackets I bought in the 1990s. Try to find a brick-and-mortar store.
It seems there is something related to the exclusivity and cubbishness many people seek out in order to stand out by not standing out.
Many higher end brands seem to eventually reach a point where they have to figure out how to keep growing without 'diluting' the brand (ie becoming too mass market). The Coaches, Burberrys, etc. Some bring out sibling brands in order to accommodate both markets, some fail and fizzle out.
"The company’s anti-materialistic stance ramped up on Black Friday, 2011, with a memorable full-page advertisement in the Times that read, “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” (...) The attention the ad received helped to bump Patagonia’s 2012 sales significantly."
They don't have an anti-growth strategy, they have a marketing strategy with an "anti-growth" message, targeting rich people who are willing to dump money into anything that will clean their consciences.
And that isn't bad, it is a brilliant marketing strategy!
I still have the same Patagonia fleece that I got when I was 15. I'm 43 now. I just had to retire a pair of Patagonia long johns I bought in about 1994 and have been used during numerous hikes and winter bicycle commutes.
It's not just marketing. With stuff that last longer you just buy less, and actually spend quite a bit less money in the long run.
There's a large retailer here in Canada -- Canadian Tire -- that I personally think should be legally forbidden from selling a good portion of the products they sell: Tools that break on the first use. Toys that have a very short path to the landfill (I feel a pang of guilt when a relative gifts one of my children with a "New Bright" or whatever utter junk brand toy is that they picked up at CT, knowing it won't make it through the night, immediately gauging just how large of a garbage bag it will need). Ultra low quality outdoor wear and tents. Cheaply made bicycles. BBQs that rust out 3 months into their life.
They are purveyors of poor satisfaction garbage dump filler products that only barely fulfill their stated purpose. Most consumers have become so accustomed to this that they don't even realize there's an issue.
It's a serious problem. A minimum level of durability for a given purpose is one of those things that is a benefit of the commons -- it is good for the entire planet.
All the things mentioned in the article are great, but I think the dominating factor in Patagonia's double digit growth is likely the larger activewear boom (see Nike sales) and growing interest in technical outdoorswear from the fashion industry.
Is there a good blog that discusses marketing strategies of various companies? I loved "Ogilvy On Advertising" and would enjoy the occasional case study about modern marketing campaigns and brands that features plenty of photos to demonstrate the point.
Yvon's book Let My People Go Surfing [1] is absolutely one of my favorite business books, and it gives quite a bit of color and insight into how he thinks about their business and the culture that they've built there.
EDIT: Another anecdote - In 2010 I bought one of Patagonia's new wetsuits. At 600$ it was twice as expensive as the nicest suits on the market, I'm lucky enough to live near a Patagonia store though and they had a yearly wetsuit sale so I paid 450$. Still an outrageous price for a suit. Most wetsuits last me about three seasons, I still wear that first Patagonia suit though. It was starting to show it's age last year so I brought it to the store and they shipped it to their repair shop up north, and then back to my house. They replaced all of the inside seams, a zipper, and added a key loop (a feature the original didn't even have). They did all this FOR FREE.
I wouldn't describe them as anti-consumerism, because they sell stuff. I do think the brand encourages thoughtful consumerism though, and mostly by producing products and services that reset your bar for value against cost.
Chouinard's book Let My People Go Surfing is an excellent overview of the history and philosophy of Patagonia, as well Chouinard's thoughts on innovation. I would highly recommend it to any entrepreneur.
I think Patagonia is growing primarily because they make really nice stuff, and a little bit because of their great PR. Basically, their products deliver on the promise of their PR. They really do work well and last a long time. I have Patagonia jackets, gloves, socks, even lightweight cotton Hawaiian shirts from the late 90s that I still wear today.
P+E, Irwin, Rigid, Snap-On, Sealey etc, even some not-so-good brands like craftsman, but there it's more of a marketing gimmick, they don't expect to have to deliver on it because the tools they sell tend to be sold to people that use them lightly.
It may well be a pipe dream, but I am simply waiting for the day when open sourced 3d printable goods are being designed and improved by more and more "consumers". It may not ever happen on the scale I would like to see it happen, but that model of pull (rather than the current pushing of new goods on people followed by a sales cycle) is much more appealing to me. Maybe people don't really know what they want and are more slaves to advertising that I would like to believe.
Not to rain on this parade, but I think we're a long way off from having a generic method to 3D print a wide variety of things that are of useful and respectable quality.
It's kind of like generic programming frameworks: the more generic a framework is, the more generic its output, and the less tailored to the needs and human nuances of the end user. The highest quality experiences are often layers of abstraction gradually growing more human and more unique as they get closer to the user.
3D printing can achieve a level of quality in many ways and for many purposes, but it remains to be seen if it can reproduce the important levels above the logical.
Agree, the system of industrial manufacturing depends on push-marketing to increase or maintain profitability since it requires large startup costs, and only really becomes viable when done at large scale.
I think Industry 4.0 is a more likely factor for change than 3d printing, though.
I love that I have been able to send in a few things to get repaired over the years. They encourage it and make it so easy to do. I have memories connected to that stuff - being in the Weminuche Wilderness above the tree line and my down jacket making the difference between a somewhat uncomfortable night and total misery. Their stuff is made well and has been good to me.
Patagonia gets a few mentions as a so called teal organization in this book http://www.reinventingorganizations.com. It's a great read if you want to understand how some of the counter intuitive bahaviours come about.
I don't know about the values (though buying less and repairing more seems smart to me?) but I think the popularity is more because patagonia was the first company to make down coats that actually fit people nicely and didn't look like space suits. or if they weren't, then they were the first company to get such products in front of my face. that's the only reason I started seeing them everywhere and got one myself. also for a hip fashion brand, the prices aren't any higher than what you'd find at some other outerwear retailers like ll bean that target the grandpa demographic.
The OP and the comments in this thread, remind me vaguely of the book "Maverick" by Ricardo Semmler about his company Semco. That's a pretty interesting read too, about unconventional but successful and people-friendly company management techniques that Ricardo sort of pioneered with his company people.
I have noticed out during the last decade that a lot of more expensive products usually end up being cheaper if carefully maintained. For example, a lot of Arc'teryx (and Patagonia by that matter) products that I own are quite old but still look good and retain their functionality, and if I tear them Arcteryx will do the repairs for a nominal fee. So by paying 50%-150% more I end up with the item that can be used for at least three times longer, than the comparable products from some cheaper brands.
Tons of respect for Yvon. He has been thinking about how to do things better for a very long time. Here's a seminal bit of climbing history from the 1974 Chouinard catalog by Yvon and Tom Frost: A Word [1]
not growing up on these parts i'm usually lost when it came to branding history (which is mostly a very good thing)
I've always thought patagonia was a cheap, generic branch from china. Since all they seem to sell are ugly jackets made from the shortest polyester fibers.
i'm actually shocked that patagonia is supposed to be a high end shop. now thinking of it, i recall seeing one or two boutique stores from them. but mostly, i just encountered their products in costco or some corner of department stores.
Yeah, I had expected an article about the Argentinian province and was curious about why people in there would be "anti-growth". Patagonia is one of the few places on Earth where I'd run to were things to turn really, really bad (nuclear war, world war, a global epidemic).
Vapid company offering its naive ideological vapid customers a vapid fairy tale. This article and the company are just an exercise in childishness. The anti-growth narrative that is often pushed by self-serving hypocrites is dangerous and anti-human, it can only serve a small communist-like minority who wishes to gain all the power while the rest of humanity starves. They're doing the same heinous thing the minority elites have done to control the populations since ancient times - gaining power by inducing unwarranted guilt in the people.
My mind spins on that statement. Kudos to the marketing genius who increases sales (= consumers) by convincing customers that they're being "anti-consumers". Companies that use group/political identity (in their case perhaps even 'cult') as part of their scheme take quite a risk in doing so, but Patagonia is one of the companies that has proved remarkably effective and successful in that genre -- consistently over a long time.
Regardless, I actually like their products.