Don’t Buy This Jacket
This week, we’re unpacking a bold and counterintuitive campaign that turned traditional marketing on its head to make a powerful statement about consumerism and environmentalism.
The Brief:
Patagonia, the outdoor clothing brand known for its commitment to sustainability, faced a challenge: How do you still sell products whilst also encouraging less consumption overall?
Rather than focusing on selling more jackets, Patagonia took a brave stance during the peak of Black Friday consumerism in 2011. They launched an ad in The New York Times with the provocative headline: “Don’t Buy This Jacket.”
The Campaign:
The ad featured an image of Patagonia’s iconic R2 jacket alongside text explaining the environmental cost of producing it. They encouraged customers to think twice before buying something new and, instead, repair or reuse their existing clothing whenever possible. Patagonia also promoted their Worn Wear program, which offers repairs and resells used Patagonia items.
This bold messaging wasn’t just a one-off. Patagonia followed it up with a comprehensive campaign focused on sustainability, including:
Reinforcing the message across their website and stores: Highlighting the environmental impact of clothing production.
Launching their ‘Common Threads Initiative’: A pledge to “reduce, repair, reuse, recycle, and reimagine” consumption.
Encouraging activism: Positioning their brand as part of a larger environmental movement.
The result? Patagonia grew their sales by almost 30% that year—proving that a mission-driven campaign could resonate deeply with consumers without feeling like traditional marketing when it felt honest in some way. Buying an expensive ad to ask people to think twice about purchasing something new is backing up their stated mission, this particularly stands out against so many brands ‘pretending’ to be mission-led as a way of gaining favour or ‘green-washing’.
Why does it stand out?
➡ Counterintuitive strategy: Telling people not to buy something grabs attention and challenges traditional consumer behaviour. It’s unexpected, and that’s powerful at catching attention.
➡ Authenticity matters: The campaign aligned with Patagonia’s longstanding commitment to environmental activism, making it credible.
➡ Activating cognitive dissonance: Encouraging consumers to reflect on their purchasing decisions tapped into a deeper emotional response, creating lasting loyalty.
➡ Aligning brand values with consumer action: Patagonia didn’t just say they cared about the planet—they showed it with tangible programs and follow-through.
Perhaps we can draw inspiration from Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign, particularly in its use of cognitive dissonance to challenge consumer behaviour. Patagonia’s bold move to highlight the environmental damage of their own product forced customers to confront the contradiction between their desire to consume and their environmental values. What if we admitted more readily that being vegan can be tough, or that making a diet change can feel awkward, or that animal advocacy can sometimes feel alienating? Would these messages help to open up healthier dialogue with more potential advocates?
Heads Up Challenge: Think what is the truth we never say that we could
(Copy the below into a working document that you can use for the challenge each week)
Are there parts of your messaging that you avoid? Is there a message that you could share that is true, surprising to come from you but could open for healthy conversations with a wider audience?
Your Brief:
Idea 1:
Idea 2:
Idea 3:
Set aside a weekly 15 minute slot to complete these weekly creative tasks and why not schedule a call with others on your team to talk through your thoughts on this topic and share ideas for you to try out?
Heads Up is a weekly creative digest that encourages animal advocates to take inspiration from case studies of creative campaign tactics outside of our movement.
> ~ 5 minutes read-time (but hopefully gets you thinking for longer than that)
> Demonstrates interesting tactics and use of biases that you can test
> Contains a creative challenge for you to explore independently or with your team with results that you can apply for your important campaigning work
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Open call: We’d like to extend an open call for guest writers to Heads Up. We’re particularly keen to capture great work from wider than our own global west lens. Have you seen some great ads or tactics that would make for an interesting Heads Up edition? We’d love to hear from you. If you’ve got an idea, get in touch at Letstalk@userfriendly.org.uk