Exploration is more than you think.

That was how I rephrased the brief to myself, as I set about writing the first ever global broadcast spot for The North Face. They needed to celebrate their core consumers while expanding outward. So we set about making that expansion feel natural, aspirational, relatable, and resonant.

Exploration isn’t just mountains, tents, crampons. It’s travel, science, and stargazing. It’s finding a frontier wherever you happen to be, or seeking a new one around the corner if not around the world.

This spot doesn’t have any VO or dialogue but damn did it ever require a lot of writing. The final script that came out of months of drafts was about a thousand words. So this montage didn’t happen by accident; we didn’t find it in the edit. This thing was a deliberately assembled mosaic of behaviors and feelings. We went analog and used note cards for images, emotions, and regions. Found the flow. Connected them. And ran it past regional stakeholders, and through global testing, before we got the green light.

One of the reasons I loved working at Mekanism was their belief in finishing every project strong. In this case, that meant fighting for the right ending, while being able to justify that ending and not have it feel like a fight.

This spot ran in :60, :30, and :15 versions in North America, Europe, and China. It launched with an exclusive on Fast Co Create, was selected as an editor's pick by Creativity Online, and was a Webby honoree.