Case Study: Patagonia R1 Digital Advertising Strategy
Our Full Funnel Digital Marketing Strategy To Drive 110 Million Impressions For Patagonia’s Technical R1 Fleece
The R1 is one of those items that you couldn’t imagine living without once you have one. Patagonia’s most famous fleece, it’s become a staple technical piece in the wardrobes of many adventurers. It’s so renowned for its versatility that, for the 20th anniversary campaign, the brand commissioned a whole song and music video dedicated to listing all the outdoor activities that had been ‘Done in R1’.
Digital Advertising Management for Patagonia
Patagonia approached us to develop a strategy for their 2025 R1 marketing campaign. Based on our previous work with the brand, we proposed a channel mix of: YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, DemandGen and Google Display.
For the awareness phase, we used video assets across YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Reddit, with banners running on Google Display. The performance was strong across all the platforms, but each one had its strengths. For example, Pinterest provided cost-effective awareness, whereas Snapchat’s engagement figures outperformed the others.
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We swapped the platforms and budget splits around for the traffic and conversion phases to make sure we were hitting the right people at the right time. Having such a longstanding relationship with the brand meant we knew that the creative from the 20th anniversary campaign would be perfect for shaking up the assets and improving the numbers.
Utilising the criminally catchy ‘Done in an R1’ video brought up the average return on ad spend. It’s clear that, of all the creative, it resonated best with Patagonia’s customers; the algorithm gave it almost half of the conversion budget, and it still had the highest ROAS of all creative variants.
Campaign Results: 110 Million Impressions and Agile Optimisation
A key takeaway was the strength of Reddit as a conversion platform. It had a low CPC and cost-effective reach and it still pulled in a ROAS above what might be expected from a bottom-of-the-funnel campaign. Makes sense, considering it’s where gear nerds go for recommendations on technical pieces or users end up after Googling information on their next considered outdoor clothing purchase.
Product Marketing for Outdoor Gear
We’ve worked with a good deal of outdoor and lifestyle brands over the years. We really know this space, which shows in the results: we reached over 110 million impressions over the course of the R1 campaign, with a ROAS well above our benchmark. We achieved this by keeping agile, making tweaks and optimisations where we needed to to get the results we wanted and maintain our track record of outperforming industry standards.
If you’re looking to amplify your digital marketing presence, get in touch.
Read how we drove 100 million impressions for Patagonia’s M10 relaunch.
