Million Moment Mission - L.L. Bean and the National Park Foundation
With children spending less and less time enjoying outdoor recreation and learning from nature, L.L.Bean is committed to helping create opportunities for children to experience the outdoors. Building upon its deep heritage in outdoor recreation and long-standing commitment to environmental conservation, L.L.Bean joined forces with the National Park Foundation to create an anniversary cause marketing campaign to encourage individuals to connect to the outdoors in active healthy ways, while providing opportunities for underserved youth to do the same.
In celebration of their 100th Anniversary in 2012, L.L.Bean created the Million Moment Mission, a year-long endeavor to collect one million outdoor moments from fans and friends to help inspire the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts. L.L.Bean pledged $1 million toward the cause, but the goal could only be achieved with broad public support. Together, L.L.Bean and the National Park Foundation issued a call for consumers to take part in the “Million Moment Mission.” For every “outdoor moment” people shared, L.L.Bean contributed a dollar to support youth programming in national parks. This effort was a compelling way to create engagement with the brand through a shared passion for the outdoors.
As previous long-time partners, the National Park Foundation and L.L.Bean collaborated on a cause-marketing strategy to create new outdoor opportunities and skill development for underserved youth. The combined effort aimed to engage individuals via a variety of online outlets and outdoor activities – including a tour by the first-ever L.L.Bean Bootmobile, a 13’ boot on wheels celebrating the company’s most iconic product. Funding was applied to NPF’s America’s Best Idea (ABI) program.
All aspects of the anniversary, from catalog copy to store events, supported the Million Moment Mission. Starting in January 2012, and for the duration of the campaign, a steady pace of news announcements, media events, consumer engagement programs, influencer outreach and compelling social content supported the campaign.
Prior to the anniversary campaign, product information and announcements such as free shipping dominated L.L.Bean’s media coverage. In social media, the focus was product and sales oriented. In 2012, this coverage focus shifted significantly with a majority of earned media clips and social conversations related to the anniversary. Before the campaign, L.L.Bean had a high volume of traditional media coverage but they lacked a clear focus – with nearly half of coverage categorized as “miscellaneous” – and recognition of charitable giving was not on the radar outside L.L.Bean’s home state of Maine. The MMM raised the visibility of the company’s charitable giving and helped increase the volume of coverage that truly defines L.L.Bean as a brand, with more than 2,500 news stories helping reach a broader audience.
Thanks to consumer participation in the Million Moment Mission, L.L.Bean reached the goal of 1 million moments by October 2012, resulting in a donation of $1 million to the National Park Foundation. This funding has already helped kids and teens across the country get outdoors and work with mentors. They’ve hiked in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, kayaked at Maryland’s Assateague Island National Seashore, worked an archaeological dig on the Great Smoky Mountains – and that’s just the start. During the 2012 program year 15,618 children were directly impacted and 13,805 were indirectly impacted.
