#108 2011 · Patagonia · Outdoor apparel retailincentive-flip
Patagonia took a full-page Black Friday ad telling customers not to buy its own jacket
the problem
Apparel brands compete for Black Friday attention by shouting louder about why to buy
background
Black Friday advertising is a contest of superlatives — biggest doorbusters, deepest discounts — aimed at maximizing same-day purchases. Patagonia, an outdoor apparel company built around environmental branding, faced the same commercial pressure every retailer does on the year's highest-volume shopping day, with the same incentive to push harder rather than less.
Patagonia had spent years publishing the environmental cost of its own products — water, carbon, waste — as part of its brand identity, but always alongside a purchase pitch. Black Friday 2011 was the first time the company let that cost data stand alone as the entire message, without a competing call to buy.
the move
On the biggest shopping day of the year, Patagonia ran a full-page New York Times ad headlined 'Don't Buy This Jacket,' detailing the environmental cost of manufacturing it and asking customers to repair, reuse or reconsider instead of purchasing new.
the payoff
Sales grew almost a third to $543 million in 2012 while Patagonia opened 14 new stores, then rose another 6% to $575 million in 2013 — about $158 million in new apparel sales over the two years the anti-consumption message ran.
what came after
The ad became one of the most cited case studies in sustainable marketing and reframed a discount holiday as an occasion for restraint rather than volume; Patagonia has repeated variations of the message in later years, and 'Don't Buy This Jacket' remains shorthand for publicly discouraging consumption without actually reducing sales.
filed under
references
- [1]Bloomberg Businessweek — Patagonia's 'Buy Less' Plea Spurs More BuyingBloomberg Businessweek, 2013bloomberg.com
- [2]Wikipedia — Patagonia, Inc.Wikipedia, 2026en.wikipedia.org