Case Study: Elevating Brand + Increasing Reach With ACLIM8
After unveiling their first-of-its-kind multitool, the COMBAR™, ACLIM8’s next mission was to spread the word—that's where WAU came in.
Services: Video, Photo, Social Media Management, Blog, Email, Ambassadors
ACLIM8 had a positive reputation percolating among outdoor gear junkies after successfully engineering and launching an extremely innovative multitool (The COMBAR™) via Kickstarter. But after the Kickstarter honeymoon phase waned, the Israel-based inventors found themselves with a lot of ground to cover, namely getting the COMBAR into the hands of adventurers in the North American outdoor market. To reach them, ACLIM8 sought the support of a team that could speak the language of the North American outdoor industry and translate a compelling brand story into undeniable content. That's when our phone rang.
Assessing the Opportunity
The ACLIM8 team has incredible clarity of vision (it’s what lead them to a home run Kickstarter launch), and they came with a definitive ask: elevated brand storytelling and digital marketing strategy to set them apart in the crowded North American outdoor industry.
Our thorough brand intake and discovery—think Neo downloading Kung Fu in The Matrix—was followed by an even more thorough digital marketing audit and strategy outline. The process highlighted a set of core opportunities:
Defining an ownable brand position + establishing storytelling pillars
Differentiating from the competitive landscape
Establishing fundamental digital marketing strategies that can scale with the brand
Content creation
Day-to-day channel management
We began managing ACLIM8's content marketing strategy from head to toe. By providing support across their entire digital ecosystem, we had the added benefit of staying nimble and pivoting as needed to meet algorithm changes, content best practices, and market trends.
On a day to day basis, our work entails managing their social media channels, blog, a robust ambassador program, email newsletters, and miscellaneous support projects such as media buys and influencer campaigns. Underpinning all this (crucially!) is recurring photo/video shoots that provide a large chunk of the content that appears throughout their digital ecosystem.
Pivoting the Brand Position
Their desire to break into the North American outdoor recreation space made the ACLIM8 x WAU connection particularly opportunistic. The ACLIM8 founders are ex Israeli special forces who, to their credit, had studied up on the American outdoor market in depth but were still struggling to pin down a brand voice and image that felt appropriate for their audience.
Our understanding of the competitive landscape within the outdoor industry was a perfect backdrop for the work that’s unfolded. Our first order of business—we had to stop pitching a four-pound multitool, as badass as it may be, as backpacking gear when it screamed “vehicle-supported recreation!” We locked in on the burgeoning overlanding market and adjacent market segments, and proceeded to seek a foothold in the gear-obsessed world of overlanding.
Content Creation: Unearthing Authenticity
If your product is the real deal, there’s no truer way to validate it than to put it in the hands of the consumer and see what happens. At WAU we tend toward content creation that elicits unvarnished reactions and honest testimony. Glossy, highly produced studio shoots and lifestyle shoots have their place, but face-to-face, no-bull conversations have a way of cutting straight to the Why underlying both consumer motivations and a brand’s existence. So for our first content production, we gave a COMBAR to an overlander (who happened to also be a mechanical engineer) had him run it, thoroughly, through its paces, and sat him down to get his take.
Our day in the field consisted of four-wheel driving up empty forest roads, meticulously documenting various fire-starting techniques, and, in classic PNW style, dodging all manner of precipitation from a particularly bi-polar Mother Nature.
We knew we’d chosen an all-star subject when, in the middle of an interview, a veritable vortex of whipping snow engulfed our set. Seated on nothing more than a plastic roto-molded cooler, our subject sat calmly, smiling, eager to answer questions as if he was on Oprah’s couch in a day time TV studio—a small testament to the importance of pre-production.
How It Started, How It’s Going
When we first met with ACLIM8, their brand positioning wasn't completely undefined but wasn't laser-sharp either. The social channels weren’t empty, but they were a far cry from a the living, breathing, evolving brand storytelling platforms they’ve become. Email newsletters and blogs lacked substance and voice, skewed transactional, and were published inconsistently. An ambassador team? Negatory.
None of this is to throw shade at the brilliant ACLIM8 crew. They were busy engineering apocalypse-proof multitools, after all.
But in the time since we began implementing our digital marketing strategy, we’ve accrued what, in hindsight, are large and sustained wins. One of the biggest has simply been identifying vehicle-supported recreation as our target market, then executing on our commitment to that community.
The content we've produced with this consumer in mind has been well received. Over half of ACLIM8’s ambassador team (a thing that exists now) consists of overlanders, including ADV motorcycle riders—a rich subculture within overlanding. ACLIM8’s flagship product is on tour with Overland Expo as part of their Ultimate Overlanding Motorcycle Build, and numerous overlanding publications have picked them up as a part of gear reviews and editorial content.
Social profiles, email content, ambassador testimony, educational blog pieces, rich video content—it all adds up to a thriving, and expanding, digital marketing ecosystem that, when looked at as a whole, confirms ACLIM8’s arrival in the North American outdoor market.
The numbers agree, too. In the first nine months of up-leveling ACLIM8’s digital and content marketing, we’ve observed the following quantifiable improvements (vs. the previous nine months):
Total Web Sessions +15% PoP
Sessions from Organic Search: +43% PoP
Sessions from Email: +3,000% PoP
Bounce Rate: -11% PoP
Avg. Session Duration: +37% PoP
D2C Ecommerce Conversion Rate: +132% PoP
D2C Ecommerce Transactions: +167% PoP
D2C Ecommerce Revenue: +184% PoP
Blog Sessions: +620% PoP
Bounce Rate on Blogs: -19% PoP
YouTube Views: +37% PoP
Total Engagements Across Core Social Channels: +461% PoP
The win we're most proud of, though, is the continued collaboration between their team and ours. The ACLIM8 crew balances an incredible clarity of vision with admirable open-mindedness. Working with them makes what can be an arduous process, seamless.
Below is a sample of photo and video content created by the WAU team for ACLIM8’s ADV and Overlanding Campaigns.
If you need help establishing and evolving your brand position, creating content for your next product launch, or finding your target audience, please don't hesitate to contact our strategists and creatives for a free consultation.