China hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Genting Snow Park, near Beijing, was chosen to be part of the official Olympic Venue.

The North Face, not being an official event sponsor, had to close one of their biggest and most iconic stores in Genting, for the whole winter season. The brand challenge was to come up with an idea, where The North Face could still be relevant during this period, reach potential customers and create a buzz around the brand values, in a period where all the attention was focused on the Winter Olympics, an event we couldn’t mention or leverage in our campaigns.

If The NorthFace was not able to leverage on the biggest Winter Event of the planet and had its most important store closed, we had to find a way to still make the brand relevant during this period.

We believed if one store was closed the exploration was still open to anyone who dared, so The North Face moved the store to a new place. We created the Coldest Pop Up store. A stunt to break through social media focused on the Winter Olympics, promote The NorthFace products and celebrate the spirit of “Never Stop Exploring”.

In China, almost a quarter of the country's population had participated in ice-and-snow sports as of October 2021.This passion increased by 2022 Winter Olympics across the young target audience, making this year especially important to brands connected to winter sports fans. China was also opening slowly after 2 years of the most extreme lockdown in the world and people were eager to go back to travel, explore and connect with nature. So, if The NorthFace was not allowed to mention the biggest Winter event happening in China and had its store closed, it could still reach and connect with their target audience by creating a stunt that leveraged on the brand’s core values, bring people back to nature and at the same time would create buzz across social media.

The Execution was made in two phases from December 31 to January 20.

First phase was the shut down of the Genting store located in the Winter Olympic resort. We wrapped up the store and created a H5 for all the people on site to know where to move next. A small film that was also created and posted across The NorthFace social media teasing our stunt. The second phase was the launch of the Coldest The Pop-Up Store. Located in the remote and wild snowy area of Changbai Mountain, one of the coldest areas in China, where temperatures often drop to a freezing -30℃. We invited everyone to come by sharing the location and the reward for those who managed to reach it.

From a closed store and a brand that couldn’t leverage on anything related to the 2022 Winter Olympics, we’ve put The North Face on the map with 13.2 Million Impressions across all platforms.

Backcountry skiers and explorers came from all across China and tried to find it, turning a challenge into a movement always celebrating the brand spirit of #NeverStopExploring.

The campaign was also featured on some of the most renowned advertising and PR websites, pushing a campaign that was made for China into an international buzz around the Coldest Pop-Up Store.