Patagonia takes us into the heart of the secret history of snowboarding in this arresting piece of branded content for Patagonia Snow.

In Foothills: The Unlinked Heritage of Snowboarding – the people of Petran, Turkey, have been snowboarding for roughly 300 years. It’s not snowboarding as we know it, but you’ll recognize it. In this film by WRKSHRT, we follow Alex Yoder and Nick Russell into Turkey’s Kaçkar Mountains on a quest to unearth the unlinked heritage of snowboarding and have some fun in the process.

Beautifully shot with authentic storytelling, Patagonia’s branded content just seems to exude authenticity for some reason. Maybe it’s the complete lack of bright colours and anything looking like it was made in China – or maybe they rub the film around in some mud and bourbon before they upload the thing on Vimeo?

All the same, it’s worth a few moments to enjoy it.

Patagonia have built their brand through the telling of inspiring stories that not only make you want to buy the brand, but also change the world.

Through the narrative of their environmental crusade, Patagonia have developed a compelling place in the minds of people who care about the future of the planet – almost encouraging you not to buy their stuff if you can resist it.

In their latest film, Patagonia presents the story of Ramon Navarro, The Fisherman’s Son.

When a visiting surfer gave a board he broke to a young boy in Punta de Lobos, Chile, he had no idea what he’d started. Young Ramon Navarro, the son of a subsistence fisherman, would rise to the top of the big wave surfing world.

Traveling the globe in search of gigantic waves to ride, Navarro lived much of his life on the road –an exploratory trip to Antarctica, a perfect 100 at the Eddie at Waimea Bay, an impossible barrel on the biggest day ever at Cloudbreak–he was everywhere. But when his home break came under threat of development, Navarro couldn’t pass through his village tossing young unknowns his broken boards. He would preserve the waves so they might have them to ride. This is the trailer for The Fisherman’s Son, next week is the premier and the beginning of the push to protect the point. #LobosPorSiempre

Born and raised at Punta de Lobos, Ramón Navarro found his passion riding the biggest waves on the planet. But his accomplishments in giant surf are just one part of a bigger vision to protect the culture and environment of the Chilean coast.

For us, what’s great about Patagonia’s approach to branded content is the realness of it.

It doesn’t feel like a professional crew where briefed to grade the film to look more raw and authentic. It feels rough around the edges because it’s told and shot by fans who would have made the film without the backing of Patagonia.

As a brand, Patagonia has a stated mission of using compelling stories to inspire people to not only buy its products, but also buy into its philosophy and take action. For Malloy, that means jumping on a story as soon as possible and avoid getting bogged down in the bureaucratic side of the creative process. via

All good brand stories contain essential elements that make them compelling. Here are 7 of them.

1. Make it unexpected? Whatever your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th story idea is – throw it out and think of the opposite. Compelling brand stories that people want to share are those that have a certain degree of WTF. Part of that could also be about taking an approach that is unexpected for a brand. Making fun of yourself is a refreshing break from the expected.

2. Let your audience feel something for your character: Great stories have a main character that is going through a major shift in their lives. That’s true for an episode of Game of Thrones as well as a story from Nike.

Remember…’Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. Then one day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.’

3. It’s got to be real: Fake stories are called ads. Real, raw, emotional stories work better if you really want to connect with an audience. People’s lives are real and if you can hold a mirror up to somebody and they see a reflection of themselves in what you are showing them, you’ve built an emotional connection.

4. Simplify: Keep editing until you have stripped out everything that gets in the way of your story being the simplest version of itself. Complexity is just a distraction.

5. Have a strong main character: With strong options, vulnerability and obviously, lots of layers of character. Audiences love stories that involve fantasy characters that are larger than reality.

6. Add value: Why are you telling this story? Is it just because you had excess marketing budget that you had to burn through or do you really believe that by telling this story you’re going to change the world? Begin your storytelling from a place where you believe that you are adding heaps of value to the world and maybe others will agree with you and share the love.

7. Have a call to action: If you’ve managed to inspire your audience, make sure that you satisfy their burning need to get involved with a clear call to action. Let them get involved straight away and join your movement.

Thanks to our connected digital world, brand stories is an exciting new field of creativity that is only set to grow stronger in the years to come. And although it is a new genre of advertising, at it’s core the essence of storytelling is as old as mankind itself. Approach your challenge with these 7 points in mind and you’re set to make a bigger impact than you ever thought possible.

For more, check out: The 22 rules of storytelling according to Pixar

Yvon Chouinard is the founder of the outdoor clothing brand Patagonia. At 74 years old, he has a wealth of wisdom and business experience that can be learnt from.

We recently found a great piece on Good Magazine that outlined the Six Things they learnt from Yvon Chouinard, which in summary really comes down to being a little more aware of the knock of effects that all actions have on your world. The modern world is geared around consumerism, which is precisely what is destroying the environment and society. The system rewards imbalance – it’s not healthy and certainly not sustainable.

It’s better to buy one good quality product that you really need than loads of crap that you really don’t.

So those six things are:

1. Optimism is a waste of time

In the [United] States, I think saving the planet was number 19 on peoples’ priorities, and now I hear its number four again. Number one is personal security. We have a nation of… scary people. Look at all these conservatives that want to arm the whole country. They want to be able to walk in restaurants with their guns and that’s because they’re cowards.

Every empire collapses. The American empire is probably on its way to collapse now. Nature doesn’t like empires. It doesn’t like accumulation in one place, it doesn’t like monoculture. It’s always trying to make diverse species. It wants to spread everything out. And we’re constantly trying to hold everything in.

2. Keep it simple

One of the things I really believed in is the idea of simplicity, that life should always be moving towards more simplicity rather than more complexity. And when I see somebody, you know, riding a finless surfboard and surfing better than 99 percent of the surfers out there, I think, “This is fantastic. This is the way to go.”

3. Climb every mountain

There are climbs I’ve never attempted that I wish I had done, particularly in the Alps. I used to climb in the Alps a lot. You know, like the north face of the Eiger? I wish I had done that climb. To me it’s kind of personified everything that I really like about climbing. I have regrets about that, but as far as the failure, I don’t look back very much.

4. Cheaters never prosper

We all want to cheat. In climbing, there are so many ways to cheat. You can do a route that’s been done 50 times and all you’ve got to do is follow the chalk marks that tell you exactly where to put your hands and feet. I can’t stand to do a route like that because I can’t stand to have people tell me what to do.

5. Consumerism is killing us

The reason why we won’t face up to our problems with the environment is that we are the problem. It’s not the corporations out there, it’s not the governments—it’s us. We’re the ones telling the corporations to make more stuff, and make it as cheap and as disposable as possible.

6. “Slow” travel is important

You remember the trips that lasted for a long time. The way people do trips now, they take a week, they go to Europe—you don’t remember those trips very much.

Read the full article here.

In the spirit of these six points – check out the film Worn Wear [below] a film about the stories we wear, presented by Patagonia.

Related books:

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years