TIMBERLAND’S CHALLENGE: to determine which of two distinct brand campaigns, one developed specifically for the European market and a new global campaign developed primarily for North America, most effectively communicated the brand’s core values and connected to the target audience in the European market. To add to this challenge, Timberland had slightly varied brand perceptions across the culturally diverse European market.

To address this challenge, PLAN-it assessed the impact and communications effectiveness of both campaigns across four geographically-dispersed markets in Europe. In-depth one-on-one interviews were conducted with in-country, bilingual moderators among Timberland’s core target audience as well as key prospects/competitive buyers. Simultaneous translation was utilized to clearly convey each participant’s perceptions to the clients. Verbal debriefs with the moderators were also conducted upon completion of the fieldwork in each market to understand the important cultural nuances within the varied European target.

The final decision was not an easy one. PLAN-it took into account each campaign’s individual strengths but also evaluated which campaign best leveraged the brand’s potential for growth over time. Both campaigns had communications strengths, however, PLAN-it believed that one of the campaigns connected to key audiences on a deeper, more emotional level. PLAN-it’s final recommendation, including some campaign fine tuning, was followed by Timberland and the new campaign, “for the Journey,” was launched in 2001 in Europe and in the U.S., where PLAN-it had conducted a similar evaluation.

The campaign has been extremely successful to date. In U.S. markets where the campaign was tracked, significant improvement in top-of-mind awareness and consideration of the brand have been achieved, particularly for apparel. Enhancing acceptance of the brand’s apparel line was also a key objective of the campaign.

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