Innored interprets 'Never stop exploring' for North Face Korea as social experiment

Client: The North Face Korea

Agency: Innored

Market: Korea

Campaign Scope: Digital

Background: To deliver North Face's 'Never stop exploring' message, Innored created a temporary store with ‘hidden functions’ and cameras in a crowded part of town. Outwardly, the store appeared normal, featuring merchandise and what you might expect from a brand like The North Face: a rock climbing wall on all four interior walls. Beyond aesthetic gimmicks however, the fixtures had much more hands-on ramifications for unsuspecting shoppers.  

While customers tried on clothes, the displays would suddenly rise up to the ceiling and the floor would shift and disappear into the wall, forcing customers to either hang onto a foothold on the wall or fall into a padded pit. A North Face winter jacket attached to a wire would then drop and hang high from the ceiling to kick off a 30-second* timer, thus challenging the 'customers' ('subjects?') to climb the wall and leap to snatch the dangling jacket.

The social experiment-style video captured numerous shoppers as part of the digital branding campaign, which has received more than 1.5 million views on YouTube since its release on October 1.

Press release quote: “Consumers who are used to comfortable city lives and are losing their natural strengths. Based on this brand philosophy, The North Face Korea induces customers to face an unexpected challenge and encourages them to overcome the situation with their own strength in order begin their journey to explore.”

Comments: Innored now has a string of video campaigns shot as candid, prankster-esque footage that manage to get across brand messages and rack up YouTube views (please see "Vending machine descends to hidden party for Chilsung Cider" and "The Italian job: Mind-boggling cosmetics ad exceeds 2 million views" and this shopping-mall cooking contest ambush). The mechanic still seems to be working in this latest work. Even if it does appear contrived, which is also part of the humour, it manages to target our innate hunger for seeing other people respond to weird and challenging situations.  

CREDITS

The agency prefers to credit "All Innored" rather listing individuals.

* Correction: We originally stated the length of the timer as 30 minutes.

In addition, the agency provided translation for the text in the video:

In the first six seconds: "What was your last exploration?"

On the screen: "Time limit of 30 seconds. Go GET the North Face down jacket."

On the landing cushion: "Again, to exploration!" (more loosely, "I repeat, go explore!")