What happens when you #SeeForYourself ? An epic adventure.

The North Face launched recently a brand campaign, “See For Yourself”, and challenged random group of New Yorkers riding a branded cab to join an epic adventure. One watching the campaign’s video for sure wouldn’t mind to be one of cab’s passengers. “See for Yourself” video went live a few days ago, surpassing already 100,000 views on YouTube.

To find out a bit more regarding the campaign, AdHugger asked Aaron Carpenter, Vice President for Global Marketing at The North Face, to answer a few questions about #SeeForYourself campaign.

AdHugger: Why did you “cab-kidnap” people and offer them one day of adventure?

Aron Carpenter: Taking a few of the bravest and unsuspecting New Yorkers on a spontaneous trip of a lifetime, is part of our “See For Yourself” brand campaign, which celebrates the outdoors and places where we play, while raising awareness of the need to protect and preserve those same lands. Through this adventure, we wanted to remind people of the importance of exploration in our everyday lives.

AdH:  What was the insight you started from and based your activation on?

A.C.: The North Face exists to inspire people to explore for themselves. More than ever, people need opportunities to connect with and explore the natural world. The more people we get to love the outdoors, the more they will care about protecting our natural playgrounds.

When we developed the concept for “Your Land” as our Fall campaign, it didn’t make sense for us to only reach consumers through broadcast, print or digital touch points. The #SeeForYourself Taxi was our way of bringing the campaign to life for real people and providing them with the opportunity to get outside and experience the outdoors in their own backyard.

AdH: What did you expect when you decided to go ahead with the idea for the North Face cab? How were the results in comparison with your expectations?

A.C.: We weren’t sure how busy New Yorkers during the morning rush would react given that we were asking them to trust in us and spontaneously change their plans for the entire day. For some people that meant missing work or class, or even changing travel plans.

We were overwhelmingly surprised by the positive response to the call of adventure. It was inspiring to see how many people were willing to drop everything with just the promise of being outside and exploring. All of the people we took out to get after it for the day tried something new pushed themselves outside of their comfort zones, but they couldn’t wait to do it again.

AdH: What feeling do you have when people say “it’s unbelievable”?

A.C.: The beauty of this campaign is that most of the people we cab-napped for the day only had to go a couple of hours outside New York City to have an epic outdoor adventure.

Our hope is that this shows people that you don’t have to travel far from your own backyard to experience new things and push your personal limits in the outdoors. Adventure is everywhere, you just need to get and see for yourself.