YETI x NUCLEAR MEDIA

Project Context

This was a full strategic deck and pitch competition that was designed with and presented to top executive decision makers at Accenture Interactive, Accenture Product and YETI.

YETI Campaign Scope 

Conduct a full quantitative and qualitative pre-campaign development analysis to address marketplace brand erosion concerns and build out new targets/segments with media support for geographic expansion of the brand with a $20 million omnichannel outreach and engagement campaign. 

Our Team’s Approach | (Reliability Among [Everyday] Risk)

Nuclear Media sought to build out Yeti’s existing strong legacy of reliability and high-end brand value among multiple new segments that have discretionary income. Our strategy builds on the sense of adventure/risk and the reliability that Yeti provides in an everyday life.

We bring Yeti’s conversation to formally meet a more upscale market who is already spending on Yeti for gifts, and buy brands that speak to who they are or strive to be. In order to do this, we capture the transforming growing trend of the world moving away from bigger outside experiences and more toward everyday experiences. There doesn’t have to be a grizzly outside one’s tent flap in the Sierra Mountains for them to gain that rugged edge they so crave. In fact, the edge doesn’t have to be rugged at all – it can be reliable, customizable, and durable for whatever lies ahead.

My Specific Contributions | (Including, not limited to:)

In building the strategy for the clients, I had both hands (and at times a boot) in just about every step of the process. I aided in building out character personas for our revamped market profile by seeking where YETI products appear naturally, as well as not-so-naturally, in the suburban adventurer’s life. A key insight pulled during this process was the consumer behavior we called “The Posers”: consumers who were brand loyal, even if they didn’t seem to represent what the brands was going for when they originally marketed the product. When you see our profile for segments within our proposed “Networked Neighbors” market, you’re primarily looking that this insight coming to fruition. This led to the reimagining of what it means to take risks based on the misadventures of everyday life, and set the tone for the project as a whole.

In addition to building case studies and product profiles, I also researched behavior patterns for our Consumer Journey Map, with the goal of understanding the Amazon consumer experience and the role it played throughout the funnel for brands in YETI’s price and product categories. This process uncovered key insecurities in Amazon’s marketplace that harmed brands’ reliability, which posed a key problem for YETI’s image as an indestructible product line. This later informed our decision to pull YETI off of Amazon.

Within the media activations themselves, I had the most influence in our Out Of Home activations. Looking to the values of our outgoing suburban target, I sought out placements that were seasonal, sensational, and surprising. The tone was to align YETI with moments where security was critical, but often taken for granted. OOH placements at amusement parks broadened the definition of adventuring in the wild, while stunt marketing at ski resorts and music festivals provided our market with experiences that were reliable even as the seasons changed.

I wrote our executive summaries and calls to action in order to ensure our deck contained strong, consistent language that not only caught the client’s attention, but resonated with them, as well. I opted to keep the tone enduring, sure, and lightly self-aware in order to represent the strategies and changes suggested by the deck as a whole.

*note: in full, this deck comes in at a whirlwind of 62 pages. the full version is available upon request.