Our partnership with Outside Inc. allowed customers to experience the work in places they already sought for inspiration and entertainment tied to their passion for the outdoors. The work went across all of Outside’s various properties including their standalone websites, streaming channels, the Gaia Trail app, their social pages, and via their influencer network.

We leveraged influencers in the outdoor space beyond Outside’s - personalities that our audience knows, follows, and trusts. They encouraged customers to visit our online hub to learn more via articles, participate in the mapping of trails, and follow others on their journeys via social-channel integration.

Being naked outside provides a long list of benefits and has grown in recent years as attitudes about nudity, mental health, and self-expression have shifted in the U.S. However, while nude hiking is legal under Federal Law in America’s National Parks, it is not always embraced by local park rangers who often ticket naked hikers. As a result, it’s challenging for nude hikers to know where they can safely hike.

The objective of this campaign was to get outdoor enthusiasts to switch from their current granola brand to Bear Naked Granola. In order to do it, we needed to prove to them that we weren’t just another boring, all-natural granola. The key to unlocking this was in our name—Bear Naked. Our strategic hook then became: Naked makes natural exciting and our objective was to prove this out in the boldest way possible.

We found our answer among an unlikely group of outdoor adventurers.

When we learned that there’s an entire community of “freehikers” or “naked hikers” who enjoy getting as close to nature as possible…we knew we were onto something. There’s just one, small problem. While nude hiking is legal under federal law in National Parks, it’s not always embraced by park rangers who often ticket people. As a result, it’s challenging for nude hikers to know when or where they can safely hike naked.

Now that was a problem we could help solve. If there was ever a brand that needed to defend your right to hike naked, it was Bear Naked.

The Idea: Naked Trails. Bear Naked will traverse, map, and even blaze new trails to enable the naked hiking community to enjoy nature the way nature intended.

The strategy was to prove that Bear Naked Granola fuels outdoor enthusiasts’ deep connection to nature. Our approach was to prove this out by standing firmly behind the niche community that represents the most unencumbered connection to nature–naked hikers.

We created an ownable moment for Bear Naked, kicking off on National Nude Day 2023, meant to empower naked hikers to finally have the tools to confidently navigate nature while naked. To do it, we created an emoji code they could use when reviewing trails in their favorite hiking app to alert each other of which ones were naked-hiking friendly ( 🐻🍑✅) or not naked-hiking friendly (🐻🍑❌).

We then worked to disseminate this code to the naked hiking community in the most authentic ways possible to put it in their hands. This included a partnership with Outside Inc., where together we launched a film, crafted magazine articles, and created an outdoor influencer campaign, all communicating our code to the naked hiking community. With Outside, we not only narrowed in on our nudist niche target, but were able to connect with the wider outdoor lover community as well.

Naked Trails successfully got Bear Naked back into the cultural conversation. Among those who were “exposed” the idea, we achieved incredible results.

Business Results1

8.4% lift in purchase consideration among those “exposed” to the idea

Brand Behavior Results2

Brand favorability increased to 34% (+20%)

Significant engagement (CTR, page views, time spent)

Commercial Results3

374 million earned impressions

23.7 Million Total Video Views across all placements

Sources:

1Outside Brand Lift Study, “Naked Trails”, 2023

2Outside Campaign Wrap Report, “Naked Trails”, 2023

3Calculated as Engagement Rate by Impressions on TT, IG, YT, 5/6/23-11/17/23