Outdoor retailer REI believes that a life outside is a life well lived. Black Friday, America’s biggest shopping day, stood in stark contrast to this belief. Held the day after Thanksgiving, this holiday had come to represent shoppers leaving their families to go buy things, spending days lining up at stores, or even fighting one another amongst the aisles.

That’s why on Black Friday 2015, REI took an unprecedented stand. The co-op closed all 143 of their stores and invited the entire country to spend the day differently - by heading outside.

Employees and members were first told the news by REI's CEO. Then a digitally-led campaign spread the #OptOutside movement across social, PR, TV, print, out of home and influencer outreach. Supporters were given a simple call to action: #OptOutside.

An online hub equipped the movement's growing ranks with everything they needed to spend Black Friday outdoors.

In the lead-up to Black Friday, the public was encouraged to voice their support on social media using a custom image creator found on the online hub. It let users select a personalized image to reflect where they would be heading outside on Black Friday, along with a stamp indicating what activity they would be enjoying. These memes helped the #OptOutside movement grow exponentially, as more and more social media users decided to take a pass on Black Friday and spend the day outdoors.

#OptOutside became a widespread cultural movement. 1.4 million people chose to spend Black Friday outside with REI. Over 170 organizations showed support for REI with some even closing their doors in solidarity. Hundreds of parks opened their gates for free.

The campaign earned 33 straight days of media coverage with 3,423 placements leading to 6.7 billion media impressions.

#OptOutside generated 1.2 billion social impressions, becoming a trending topic on Twitter for three separate days and Instagram for two separate days. #OptOutside was #11 of Brandwatch's top 15 Twitter trends of 2015. The hashtag entered the larger social vernacular - six months later, it was still being used thousands of times per day.

While #OptOutside was designed for long-term community engagement, not to drive short-term sales, REI revenues were up double digits year over year (bucking industry trends). Applications to work at REI were up 92% in Q4 2015.

REI's #OptOutside movement centered on an unprecedented call to action: Don't go shopping on Black Friday, head outside with REI and its employees instead. REI closed all of their stores and paid employees to spend the day outdoors, encouraging the public to signal their support by using #OptOutside. These consumers were invited to head outside on November 27, with over 1.4 million people choosing to do just that.

Research confirmed that interest in the outdoors was up and the health benefits of spending more time outside was gaining traction. Tangentially, enthusiasm for Black Friday shopping was decreasing. This signaled that the time was right for REI to take a stand against the chaos of Black Friday. REI had the opportunity to leverage this moment to build and connect communities around the outdoors, helping people understand and share its unique purpose and values.

The people-first strategy meant using a cross-channel approach to unite employees, co-op members, outdoor enthusiasts, the outdoor industry and non-profit partners to generate a national conversation about the benefits of a life outdoors while crafting inspiring content to invite people to #OptOutside.

Using a hashtag as the campaign line and call to action, we were able to create a simple way for anyone to stand up and join. A custom social media tool on the #OptOutside

Outdoor retailer REI believes that a life outside is a life well lived. Black Friday, America’s biggest shopping day, stood in stark contrast to this belief. Held the day after Thanksgiving, this holiday had come to represent shoppers leaving their families to go buy things, spending days lining up at stores, or even fighting one another amongst the aisles.

That’s why on Black Friday 2015, REI took an unprecedented stand. The co-op closed all 143 of their stores and invited the entire country to spend the day differently - by heading outside.