Northern Playground Ambassador Strategy
We’re not looking for people to advertise our clothes
We’re looking for people who are trying to make the world a little better. People who dare to step outside their comfort zones for something they believe in, and who are working to change, challenge, build or protect something, with climate, the environment and nature as a common thread. People who don’t just talk, but actually do.
It could be an activist asking difficult questions, a farmer trying to grow food in a better way, an athlete challenging their own industry, or a researcher, artist, entrepreneur or conservationist who has decided to do things a little differently.
Some do big, radical things. Others take small steps. You don’t have to be perfect or have all the answers. But you have to be willing to do something.
Our ambition is big: we want to set a gold standard for collaborations that move the world in a better direction. A bit like Red Bull, but for the world’s most inspiring activists and nature lovers. Not because we’ll pay the most, but because we can achieve more together.
Your cause matters more than our clothes
A classic ambassador programme usually involves a company finding people who can tell the world how amazing its products are. We want to turn that around.
First and foremost, we’re interested in you and what you do. What are you trying to change? Why are you doing it? What’s difficult? What have you learned? And how can more people get involved?
We want to use our channels, people and resources to amplify interesting people and important causes. Our clothes will naturally be part of the picture, but they play second fiddle.
We don’t need a photo of you on a mountaintop with a caption about how amazing our jacket is. We’d rather hear why you climbed that mountain. Or why you think the planned cable car shouldn’t be built on that very same mountain.
The cause first. The person second. The product last.
Courage matters more than followers
You don’t need 100,000 Instagram followers. Some of the people we work with will have a large reach because we want to reach people we wouldn’t otherwise reach together. But reach isn’t the whole ticket in.
We’re looking for people who are willing to step outside their comfort zones for something they believe in. A good story can travel further than a big following.
This also doesn’t mean you have to live a perfectly environmentally friendly life. The idea that you have to get everything right can easily keep people away from the climate and environmental movement.
We believe in something else: You don’t have to do everything. But you can do something. And perhaps those who have already taken a few steps can make it a little easier for others to take their first.
We make each other bigger
Northern Playground will help you and your cause get more attention, and you’ll help us reach people we wouldn’t otherwise reach. Together, we’ll try to get more people to care, get involved and take action.
This could happen through films, photography, social media, newsletters and our website. But just as easily, it could happen out in the real world through hikes, conversations, campaigns, climbing, sailing, repair evenings or dinners. We can talk about serious things and still have fun. We like people with a sense of humour and a twinkle in their eye.
At the same time, we want this to become more than a collection of individual collaborations. We want to build a network where a farmer can meet an elite athlete, a nature activist can meet an entrepreneur, and a researcher can meet a musician. A place to share experiences, contacts, ideas and knowledge, help each other out and make it a little easier to try something new.
The network should have value even when Northern Playground isn’t in the room.
What do you get, and what do we expect?
You get clothes from Northern Playground, access to our channels, and the opportunity to create films, photos, stories, events, trips and other projects with us. Above all, you become part of the network.
In return, we want people who genuinely want to be involved. We won’t demand four Instagram posts per quarter or give you a discount code to push to your followers. But we hope you’ll share your story, come up with ideas and do things with us, contribute to the network, challenge us when needed, and share things from Northern Playground when it feels relevant.
We also expect you to actually use the clothes you receive and live by our Buy Less philosophy. That means, among other things, not constantly filling your wardrobe with new clothes, and repairing what you already own when it needs fixing. Repair is something we’d love you to talk openly about.
You’re not a channel we’ve bought. You’re part of the project.
Is this a sponsorship deal?
Not in the traditional sense. You receive clothes from us, and we invest time, channels and resources in the collaboration, but we don’t pay a fixed ambassador fee.
If we work on a specific project together that involves work we would normally pay someone to do, we treat it as paid work and agree on any compensation separately.
We want the collaboration to be simple and open, without making the model too rigid. Especially at the beginning, we’d like to stay in close dialogue and figure out how we can work best together.
Why is a clothing brand doing this?
Because we don’t want to be just a clothing brand.
We make clothes from natural materials, repair them, and try to get people to buy fewer things and use them for longer. But clothing is only one part of the bigger questions we care about:
How can we live good lives without using up the nature around us? And how can we, as a commercial company, challenge and change our own deeply polluting industry?
If we’re serious about these questions, we can’t just talk about ourselves. There are thousands of people with stories and causes that matter more than the story of our next jacket. We want to help tell those stories.
We broke up with Meta. Now we want to invest in people.
Northern Playground has stopped advertising on Meta. It has cost us a lot of visibility and forced us to ask an interesting question: How will new people discover us without Big Tech?
Part of the answer is to invest more in people.
We want to put more resources into good stories, events, experiences and a community that creates a sense of belonging, both in the real world and through a screen. Into people we believe in who are already doing interesting things out in the world.
The ambassador programme is an important part of that philosophy. Can we invest in people instead of algorithms, while building something that creates value for everyone involved?
From Norway to the world
We’re starting in Norway and want to build a small, strong and rather unusual group of people doing interesting things for nature, the climate and the environment. Not a catalogue of celebrities, but a living network of people who want to contribute and make each other better.
If we succeed, we believe this could become an important way for Northern Playground to grow, first in Norway and eventually beyond. Not because our ambassadors are supposed to sell Northern Playground, but because interesting people know interesting people, good ideas spread, and courage is contagious.
When you see others dare to do something difficult, unfamiliar or a little uncomfortable, it becomes a little easier to try it yourself.
People who actually do something. Those are the people we want by our side.
