The Cotopaxi Bag Tag

Improving Cotopaxi’s Messaging Among Millennials

Summary

In collaboration with Cotopaxi — a Utah-based, premium outdoor gear company focused on sustainable poverty alleviation — UVU students were given the opportunity to use a semester to audit a facet of Cotopaxi and propose a solution. We were divided into 3 teams and, after a meeting with Seth King, VP of Field Marketing at Cotopaxi, were able to zero in on a specific tenet of their digital marketing.

In coordination with other teams, our team — which consisted of myself and two other students — decided to focus our efforts on assisting Cotopaxi in improving the quality of their messaging towards millennials. We proposed combining a physical print experience with a digital experience highlighting the Del Dia product and the values and Impact of Cotopaxi as a brand.

In the end, our proposed solution was to:

1. Strengthen the emotional connection Millennial customers have to their Cotopaxi products by more clearly delivering Cotopaxi’s Del Dia line and Impact stories through a more accessible venue.
2. Reinforce Cotopaxi as a premium brand by delivering a high quality, immersive experience.

My contribution to this project was in leading the research and evaluation process as well as providing suggestions and feedback for the print and digital deliverables, which were conceived by my teammates. That being said, we each contributed to every stage of the process and remained fully involved in the project throughout its duration.

Below are the details surrounding discovery, ideation, and proposed implementation of our solution.

Research and Evaluation

Cotopaxi presented us with research they had previously done. From the research and past audits we were given as well as from a team audit of the Impact story of Cotopaxi, we synthesized the data into what is presented below.

Client objectives

From our early conversations with Seth, he mentioned a desire to improve messaging toward millennials in general. He specified several opportunities here, namely the Del Dia line and Cotopaxi’s Impact story.

Problems

1. The Impact story is vaguely described on Cotopaxis website, but in order to learn details on what good is actually being done, users have to either download a lengthy impact report document, or visit the website of the organization that was collaborated with, which doesn’t always provide details about how Cotopaxi helped.
2. The Del Dia line is prefaced by a two-line description of how Del Dia products are made from recycled materials selected by an employee in the Philippines, who has complete creative control. Outside of this two-line preface, the only way to discover more details about what this process is like is to scroll to the bottom of an individual product detail page. There’s a lack of information in this section about Cotopaxi’s high standards for their manufacturers to treat their employees well.

Audience

It is important for customers to have a full understanding of the global reach of Cotopaxi’s Impact Foundation. In reviewing the brand audit, Seth’s insights, and Cotopaxi’s personas, a few solutions to improve customer awareness became evident, including providing information about the high standards of treatment toward suppliers and their employees.

Personas

Cotopaxis personas

We took a look at Cotopaxi’s personas and pulled key points that we felt related to the direction we took. Pulling these highlights allowed us to reaffirm that the direction we were heading was in line with Cotopaxi’s audience and also acted a validation that the solution we were approaching met the goals and objectives of these customers.

Highlights we picked out from these personas

Highlight

Targeted customers are those who are concious of their purchases and resonate with companies that focus on giving back to good causes. These customers want to feel that their choice in company brings about positive changes in the lives of people all around the globe. Their purchase is not only unique and individualized, but provides a unique and individualized impact on someone else.

Content and Building Experience

The bag tag

Our team suggests highlighting the successes and tenents of Cotopaxi’s Gear for Good campaign through the use of paper cards placed in products. This will allow for customers, both instore and upon delivery, to be able to access a unique digital experience (via QR code) that highlights where their product came from and the unique issues their purchase is supporting.

By providing both a physical and digital experience for customers, our team will be able to showcase Cotopaxi’s impact while making each purchase feel unique.

We decided to go with a print experience because the bags customers are buying are physical products that they interact with in retail stores as well as in their own home, if they order the product online. The bag tag provided us a way to reach anyone in contact with a Cotopaxi bag.

One of the main concerns we had about using a QR code to feed customers to an online experience was whether or not QR codes were even an avenue millennials are comfortable navigating.

Through some research, we discovered an article by Scanova, the largest resource for news and guidance in using QR codes. This article highlights lots of QR usage stats from big companies, indicates the increasing trend for social media and online payment apps to use scannable codes, and lists several reasons why marketers should consider using them. One of the most powerful quotes from this article was:

“Consumers, especially in North America and Europe, have become mature in their buying behavior. They demand detailed product information (such as ingredients, sourcing, technical specifications, user manual, etc.) on the packaging before making a purchase.”

We believe that the evidence provided in this and other articles suggests QR codes are a viable option for directing traffic to specific information.

These tags are not only printed with a QR code, but also with the following copy:

“At Cotopaxi, we want to highlight the people behind our products and the impact beyond our brand. Snap the QR code on the back of this tag to learn more about the story of our products, including the bag in your hand.”

The webpage

Once customers have scanned the code on the bag tag, they are directed to one of two places.

1. If a customer scans a code from a product other than the Del Dia line, they’ll be directed to a page that more directly breaks down the direct impact Cotopaxi has through their Impact foundation and which causes they’ve supported. This page links to web-based reports for each cause Cotopaxi has worked with.

The landing page for non Del Dia scans

Each cause Cotopaxi has collaborate with will have its own details page

2. Del Dia line products will have a tag that directs customers to a page that clearly describes how the bags are made in manufactories in Philippines that maintain rigorous standards of respect for their employees, who create individually styled, unique Del Dia bags from recycled materials.

In an effort to include online customers, we created this card to be placed underneath the “Add to cart” call-to-action button on product detail pages. This card will navigate users to the previously described pages according to the type of product detail page users navigate from.

Conclusion

These deliverables were presented to Cotopaxi executives in a meeting at their Headquarters. The reception was extremely positive and offers for internships were extended to students who participated.

We found a several ideas and solutions for Cotopaxi to use in the future. The Cotopaxi customer is already profoundly happy with the products supplied. Knowing more about the global impact and difference this brand is making in the world will improve messaging toward Millennials and assist in solidifying them as loyal customers to this premium brand.

Retrospective

Due to time and resource constraints, there are several aspects of this proposal that fall short. There are also other facets that we were capable of completing effectively that we let slip.

1. If I was to do this audit again, I would have generated more of my own research outside of what Cotopaxi had created. It was very useful to glean information from their past research and audits, but I think the value and validity of our solution could’ve been improved through the presentation of more qualitative research.
2. We spent time in other areas and were unable to test the bag tag in any form of authentic setting. Its a bit of a question mark how the bag tag will be received by customers in store as well as at home.
3. In our presentations, the VP of marketing brought to our attention that our designs for a card on product detail pages breaks a marketing principle of funneling users to the cart. He pointed out that its poor practice to place elements on a product details page that navigate users away from the cart because it leads to a decrease in sales conversions. I would’ve liked to spend more time addressing this concern and finding a solution that would allow users to access those pages from another place that wouldn’t detract from the product details page.
4. Our focus wasn’t on the UI design of the mockup webpages we presented, but given more time, it would have been effective to more thoroughly brand these designs in parallel to Cotopaxi’s branding. It also would’ve been good to do some usability testing of these pages.

Thanks for reading! Check out my other work and let me know what you think! Critiques and feedback are more than welcome. Leave comments or contact me at jackson.lloydlp@gmail.com.

Thanks,

— Jackson