
Ann Taylor's First Campaign in Nine Years — the Newsletter Came Six Months Earlier
Ann Taylor launches 'This Is Ann,' its first integrated campaign since 2017. The real lesson of this brand relaunch is sequencing: the newsletter came first.

Canada Goose recently posted a short video to its social channels clipping together stunning shots of nature and people moving through unique and dangerous places: a tornado, an erupting volcano, a kayaker in rough waters and someone paragliding off a mountain.
The video is part of the brand's new marketing platform "Natural Intelligence," which reflects a desire to get back to a narrative more grounded in the outside world.
"We wanted to bring back the story and the connection to the actual world. Really what our whole brand is built around is facilitating exploration and helping people thrive in that natural world." — Victoria Freeman, SVP of global marketing, Canada Goose
It launched during the high season of nature's calendar, right after the summer solstice.
The platform is backed by a sentiment that consumers feel increasingly disconnected from nature.
The brand cited a September 2025 report from British Columbia's tourism board:
| Finding | Figure |
|---|---|
| Feel there is a nature deficit in the media and culture they consume | 46% |
| Sample | 2,000 U.S. adults |
The report also noted that despite craving breaks from their screens, Gen Zers spend less time in nature than Gen Xers did at the same age.
"Breaking away to the freedom of nature is something that we want to be an advocate of."
The brand's previous longtime platform, "Live in the Open," centred on freedom and connecting with the outside world. The new messaging takes this a step further, offering a deeper glimpse at the meaning behind natural intelligence.
Over a clip of someone boarding down a volcano:
"Natural intelligence is being unavailable but fully present." "Natural intelligence is the original operating system." "Natural intelligence is feeling the season before the calendar agrees." "Natural intelligence is reading clouds like subtitles." "Natural intelligence is knowing the best stories don't expire." "Natural intelligence is being attached to nothing and connected to everything."
Reconnecting with nature isn't a new or unique concept in marketing. But the natural world is a luxury not everyone has access to, and the digital world tends to pull people away from it.
"The platform is meant to be capturing the fringes and the phenomenon of the natural world and bringing some of those new storylines to the consumer and to our audience."
The rollout:
Consumers also get a glimpse into the lives and work of field experts who interact with parts of the outside world that are often inaccessible or overlooked — a mushroom biologist, a storm chaser and a firefly researcher.
The platform's origins trace back a couple of years.
For the 2024 launch of the Snow Goose collection, designed by the brand's first creative director Haider Ackermann, the brand showcased his trek through remote, snowy, mountainous Iceland with a small group.
"That content for us just blew up on our digital channels."
Wanting to continue sharing such experiences at a more accessible regional level, the company began taking smaller groups to interesting places:
"That's a whole Italian ritual that happens that nobody talks about. But it has such amazing intelligence that's built into it."
The brand is also cataloguing a long list of creators considered field experts on Instagram and TikTok, so it can post nods and recognition to their slice of natural intelligence in their comments — a more grassroots, guerrilla-type execution.
Before launching, the brand's spring campaign celebrated the return of the sun — an important event in Northern communities that go months without sunlight.
Canada Goose sent a group clad in its apparel to Svalbard, Norway, for the annual festival welcoming the sun back after more than 100 days of darkness.
That effort was the brand's top-performing content to date in 2026 based on organic reach and engagement.
"It was a campaign that was very grassroots and experiential in activation and in nature, but it also had a fashion campaign component," Freeman said. That success led the brand to realise it had something in the texture of the natural calendar.
About a decade ago, Canada Goose had a cold, polar image. Over the past five years it evolved by testing the waters in fashion and luxury. Now it is fusing the two — reconnecting with the outside world while evolving into an all-season lifestyle brand.
"It's been the natural progression of growing and changing and going from a one season, very specific product offering for a brand, to something that's much more lifestyle, local."
"We were built in the north, but we are a brand for all points in nature across the globe. From a sales perspective, we hope that kind of love and connection with who we are translates to business."
It's designed as deepening, not replacement. Moving from "Live in the Open" to "Natural Intelligence" digs deeper along the same axis rather than starting over — a transition that doesn't reset brand equity.
Launch timing follows the natural calendar. Choosing just after the solstice follows the rhythm of the subject, not the campaign calendar. Concept and timing share one logic.
Data justifies the emotion. The tourism board finding that 46% perceive a nature deficit underwrites the creative direction — sourced numbers change internal conversations even for emotional campaigns.
Casting field experts, not celebrities. A mushroom biologist, storm chaser and firefly researcher supply inaccessible knowledge rather than followers — buying information rather than borrowed authenticity.
The platform was reverse-engineered from a hit. After Svalbard became 2026's top performer, the pattern was formalised into a platform: campaign → insight → platform.
Comments are treated as a medium. Building a list of field-expert creators and leaving recognition in their comments costs almost nothing and works inside the community.
Read it as a seasonal brand's expansion problem. For a winter outerwear brand to become all-season, the narrative has to cover four seasons before the product does — giving spring and summer content a reason to exist is this platform's practical function.
Canada Goose's new marketing platform, launched just after the summer solstice, using dramatic natural scenes — tornadoes, volcanoes, kayaking, paragliding — and the people moving through them to reconnect the brand and its consumers to the natural world.
A September 2025 report from British Columbia's tourism board surveying 2,000 U.S. adults found 46% feel a nature deficit in the media and culture they consume, and that Gen Zers spend less time in nature than Gen Xers did at the same age despite craving screen breaks.
Field experts who interact with inaccessible or overlooked parts of the natural world — a mushroom biologist, a storm chaser and a firefly researcher — providing a behind-the-scenes view of the science and rhythms of nature.
The spring campaign in Svalbard, Norway, joining the annual festival welcoming the sun back after more than 100 days of darkness. It was the brand's top-performing content of 2026 on organic reach and engagement, prompting the shift to a natural-calendar platform.
From the cold, polar image of a decade ago, through five years of testing fashion and luxury, to fusing both into an all-season lifestyle brand — "built in the north, but a brand for all points in nature across the globe."
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