Outdoor sports, such as surfing, mountaineering and skiing, are historically exclusive. For years, those sports and their communities were dominated by a white athletic male culture and were far from diverse. This homogeneous environment was, and sometimes still is, reflected within the outdoor industry. Thus, for years, outdoor brands, including Patagonia, represented this one-sided image of outdoor sports throughout their products, marketing, and workplace. This image has excluded various people and has caused minorities to experience barriers to participating in outdoor sports. Over the last few years, Patagonia has been contributing to inclusion and diversity in outdoor sports. As such, Patagonia strives to represent different minorities within outdoor sports. In this way, Patagonia attempts to convey that these people are also part of the outdoors.
Additionally, the brand provides minority communities financial support to participate in outdoor sports and to realize their community projects. Yet, the brand lacks internal diversity and understanding of minorities and their outdoor concerns and interests. In the endeavour for outdoor sports inclusion, Patagonia seeks new ways to understand these people better to support them to engage in outdoor sports. Therefore, this graduation project explores further possibilities for Patagonia to support minorities to enjoy outdoor sports.
Based on insights from literature, interviews with multiple people within the outdoor industry and an analysis of Patagonia, a list of key takeaways is formulated. According to these takeaways, the outdoor sports culture is slowly becoming more diverse, yet outdoor brands internally lack the expertise to represent and appeal to this diverse audience. Besides, outdoor brands need to portray outdoor sports in a way that appeals to people outside the traditional demographic. Lastly, this research dominantly shows that to understand marginalized individuals and to help them engage in outdoor sports, Patagonia needs to collaborate with minority outdoor communities. These communities understand marginalized individuals and know how to get them engaged.
A project vision called "Outdoor Stories" was established based on the key takeaways and Holt's Cultural Brand model (Beverland, 2018). This vision encourages everyone to create outdoor stories together with Patagonia. The underlying thought of this vision is to look for project directions to connect Patagonia with minorities. Thus, creating a solution for collaborative support enabling minorities to participate in outdoor sports. This vision to connect Patagonia with minorities is turned into Designing Outdoor Inclusion, the co-creation tool designed for this graduation project.
Designing Outdoor Inclusion is to be used as a tool for a co-creation session between Patagonia, marginalized young adults and minority community leaders. The tool consists of obstacle and context cards. With the help of these cards, participants brainstorm solutions in groups to solve exclusivity issues in outdoor sports.
Additionally, participants explore applying these solutions within different contexts on which Patagonia has influence. The use of the tool ultimately leads to concepts to enable marginalized young adults to participate in outdoor sports. In cooperation with minorities, Patagonia can then turn these concepts into products, services, and campaigns. Furthermore, the tool enables Patagonia to acquire more knowledge about minorities and provides Patagonia with a means to connect with minorities in a new way.