The first day of summer is almost upon us—Friday as a matter of fact— and that means outdoor BBQs, long afternoons at the beach and camping.
L.L.Bean plans to help people get the most out of those precious summer days by spending more time outside, together. L.L.Bean Backyard Campsites are about to pop up in major cities across the country and Uber is offering coupons to get people to the events.
The first campsite pops up tomorrow in New York City’s Battery Park. Marshmallows will be roasted to top s’mores. There will be yard games and an audio experience by the National Park Foundation’s PARKTRACKS along with hands-on activities from L.L.Bean’s Outdoor Discovery Program. Once New York wraps, additional campsites will be staged during the summer in Buffalo, NY; Madison, WI; and Boston.
The events are part of L.L.Bean’s “S’more Out of Summer” campaign with a goal to help people get more out of the season through a variety of events and initiatives geared towards friends and families, the company said.
The S’more Tour will also be on the road to showcase L.L.Bean’s Bootmobile at outdoor festivals and other events, where there will be free Outdoor Discovery programming at local parks like family hikes, kids activities and free kayak and paddleboard rentals. And, if you happen to be near a L.L.Bean retail store on June 22, there will be free s’mores for all.
Adding another layer to the summer campaign, a contest offers the chance for five people to win the “Ultimate Backyard Campout”—a tent, sleeping bags, fire pit, camping attire, along with some L.L.Bean experts to set it all up. Rules require sharing a photo of how people, and their loved ones, are enjoying the summer on Instagram, Twitter or L.L.Bean’s Facebook using the hashtags #SmoreOutofSummer and #LLBeanContest19.
L.L.Bean has also developed the “S’more Out of Summer Guide” available at stops along the tour, in stores and online offering tips like, discover a new national park or learn something new like kayaking or archery.
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About two years ago, the 107-year old retailer shifted focus to align with a new refined brand positioning: “Made For the Shared Joy of the Outdoors.” Last summer, one of its most robust campaigns, “Be an Outsider at Work,” launched. In New York City’s Madison Square Park it opened an outdoor co-working space, designed with group and individual work areas. The experience then hit the road over six weeks with stops in Philadelphia, Boston and Madison, WI.
The team landed on a goal to create a conversation to inspire a movement to get the outside into workdays with earned PR impressions as a primary metric to success, as well as social engagement and digital interactions like web traffic and video views. Impression data was collected through several media monitoring platforms for print, digital and broadcast media and then compiled in-house.
Social chatter about the campaign was 4.4 times higher than the industry average. USA Today, the largest newspaper in the country, picked up the story on its front page. And a January 2019 New York Times article cited research from L.L. Bean’s survey in an article titled “The Next Frontier in Office Space: The Outdoors.”
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