Patagonia Innsbruck Store Launch: Digital Marketing Case Study

Building an engaged local community for the latest Patagonia retail store

Off the back of our successful campaign to launch a retail location in Manchester for outdoor brand Patagonia, they approached us to help them launch their next European retail store.

Innsbruck in Austria is a haven for outdoor enthusiasts, benefitting from excellent skiing and snowboarding opportunities in the winter and hiking, climbing and mountain biking in the warmer months; so an ideal choice for a new Patagonia store. This, however, was to be the first retail location for the brand in Austria so it was vital that we built an engaged local community prior to the store opening its doors for the first time to make sure the opening was highly anticipated and the store would hit the ground running.

This gave us a clear brief for the campaign: build a local community of engaged fans that would follow the store online and, once it opened, would be ready to attend events, workshops, talks and treat it as their go-to place for outdoor gear.

Growing an Instagram audience of future customers

The initial phase of the campaign revolved around the new @patagoniainnsbruck Instagram account which was created several months prior to the store opening. At this point the physical location was bricks and mortar, the staff still in training but this didn’t mean that we couldn’t start laying the groundwork and growing an engaged Instagram audience.

We planned and posted a series of images to get the account started. These included teaser images such as ‘coming soon’ graphics and the new store logo interjected with images from wider brand campaigns to give audiences an idea of what to expect from their new store. We also posted a selection of core sports imagery to ensure we were reaching the right people who had the specific interests that the store would eventually cater for. In the initial phase of the campaign, all these posts were also supported with advertising budget in order to reach relevant new audiences; this not only made people aware of the account and subsequent store launch but enabled the account followers to grow at an elevated rate. This meant that when Patagonia Innsbruck officially announced its opening on March 15th the account had over 2,000 excited followers ready and waiting to hear the news.

Packed out in-store events

The next phase of the campaign focused on promoting in-store events. When a new Patagonia store launches, a series of events take place in-store. Promoting film screenings, yoga classes and Q&As with brand ambassadors all serve to introduce the local community to the brand; it gives them an idea of Patagonia’s values as well as providing potential customers with an opportunity to take their first look around the new store.

Events are a key way of engaging a local community early on, which is why it is vitally important that they go well, with packed audiences and ticket sellouts. This is where our support comes in. We utilise social media’s advanced audience targeting capabilities to ensure the right people are made aware and are attending the events. One of the many events promoted was the official Patagonia Innsbruck launch party, which took place a couple of weeks after the store opened its doors. Because we had begun building audiences early on, by the time we promoted the official launch we already had a catalogue of engaged fans to advertise the event to. This targeted promotion contributed to a highly popular and well-attended launch party, with well over 2,000 individuals registering their interest on the Facebook event.

Continuing audience growth after opening day

The next phase of the campaign comprised of a series of ongoing social adverts on Instagram, Instagram Stories and Facebook. These were made up of various types of ad creative that informed people that the store was now open, encouraged them to ‘get directions’ and also prompted them to follow the @patagoniainnsbruck Instagram account for updates. These campaign objectives ensured that we were not only continuing to grow the store’s online presence but guaranteed that we were supporting the in-store visits and footfall as well.

A legacy for Patagonia Innsbruck

Over the course of the campaign, our social adverts reached local 172,680 people, not including the additional organic reach seen through the initial launch of the Instagram account.

The Patagonia Innsbruck store opened in March 2019 to a fantastic response, seen both online and via event attendance and customers in-store. A well-devised social strategy contributed to this success and we were thrilled to be a part of it. So much so that we took the trip to Innsbruck to enjoy the launch party alongside the rest of the Patagonia team. They now have a solid foundation of engaged and dedicated fans to continue to build upon as they grow their own local community.

Are you an international brand looking to engage consumers at a local level? Or are you opening a store or retail concept and want your ideal customers to know about it? Maybe we can help. Tell us about your exciting plans here.