Lots of brands put their manifestos into advertising, and frankly, they’re usually not that interesting. We wanted to figure out how we could share the one we’d developed for L.L.Bean in a format unique to its message. How could we make people understand what it means to “Be an Outsider”? More importantly, how could we encourage them to actually get outside? By creating a print ad that’s only fully visible when exposed to the sun, we could invite people to literally see L.L.Bean in a new light.

We began with an understanding that the client wanted to share the brand manifesto that we’d written for them. The challenge was doing that in a fresh, purposeful way that would actually get people outside. We weren’t sure if UV ink was really a thing; lucky for us, it was. After working with our vendor through rounds of test prints, we settled on a design using parts of the manifesto copy as an invitation to readers. As an additional hint, we added a clear CTA at the bottom encouraging people to take the ad outside. Once readers stepped outside with it, the full text was revealed. To fully engage with the campaign message, people had to step outside for a breath of fresh air. The ad ran in the New York Times on the first day of fall with a production run of 286,040.

The sunlight ink ad was an audacious start to the “Be an Outsider” campaign. In addition to receiving paid exposure in the New York Times, the ad was covered nationally in 509 publications across broadcast, newspaper and online outlets, reaching over 727 million consumers and earning approximately $700,000 in added value — equivalent to 3x the initial investment.