686 Technical Apparel

Transforming a snow legacy into a year-round outdoor brand.

As Creative Director at 686, I led the repositioning of the brand beyond winter; establishing a unified creative system across product, campaign, and commerce. The result: an apparel line that started as overbought quickly turned into a line that needed frequent replenishment, a women’s strategy that doubled DTC orders, and performance marketing that consistently delivered 4-9x ROAS.

The Brand Shift: From Outerwear to Outdoor

The Challenge

686 built its reputation on technical snow outerwear. As the brand grew, its opportunity extended beyond winter, into broader outdoor categories that required greater clarity, consistency, and a unified creative system.

The challenge was not seasonal expansion; it was alignment. Storytelling was disconnected across the brand, the visual language lacked cohesion, and execution had become reactive rather than strategic.

I established an outdoor-first creative system that unified campaign and commerce—clarifying the brand, making it unmistakably 686.

The system included:

  • Brand positioning (outdoor-first vs. snow-focused)

  • Storytelling frameworks, visual language, and creative guidelines

  • Performance creative principles balancing brand + conversion

The Solution

The outdoor-first creative framework established clear positioning principles and visual language that unified how 686 showed up across all touchpoints.

Strategy translated into creative guidelines that clarified and strengthened the brand’s expression.

Measurable Results

The first expression of the framework launched in Q1 as an apparel relaunch—driving a significant week-over-week lift across categories and sustaining positive year-over-year performance throughout the season.

At the time, the apparel line was heavily over-inventoried and under consideration for reduction. Within the year, core products required replenishment, and the brand committed to continuing and scaling the category.

Women’s Strategy: Building from the Ground Up

The women's initiative began with ambiguity—no defined brief, just recognition that something was missing. I started at the beginning: research, pattern recognition, diagnosis. I identified the core problems: Fit systems were undefined, silhouettes were either reactive or outdated, and storytelling was disconnected from how women actually use the product.

The Challenge
The Solution

I built the framework from this insight:

  • Defining fit language within the 686 system

  • Clarifying and strategizing contemporary silhouettes

  • Solving long-standing customer pain points

  • Creating storytelling frameworks that reflect how women participate

This research and data-driven approach organized into a cohesive system—creating clarity that could scale across product development, campaigns, and merchandising.

Research from surveys, reps, and athlete collaboration informed the women’s strategic foundation, clarifying key pain points and opportunities.

Internal and competitive analysis defined a framework that clarified fit language and silhouette strategy across the brand.

Product storytelling proves the women’s strategy in practice—demonstrating fit, performance, and silhouette across sizes.

Outline Campaign: Strategy Becomes Creative Execution

The Outline campaign became the first intentional expression of the women’s system, proving the framework in DTC channels through technical credibility, modern silhouette, and alignment with 686 athletes.

The Result:

  • Strong cross-channel performance

  • Renewed internal confidence

  • Doubled DTC orders for 26/27 season

The Systems at Work

With clear positioning, visual language, and storytelling in place, the team could execute campaigns with consistency across channels.

Brand-Forward Performance

I built 686’s performance marketing program from the ground up—defining how the brand shows up in paid media without compromising its identity.

Creative judgment, informed by data, consistently delivered 4–9× ROAS.

Ultimately, this work was about building structure; establishing creative frameworks and systems that enabled 686 to scale with clarity and coherence.

Results:

  • Repositioned 686 as a year-round outdoor brand

  • Converted overbought inventory into sustained replenishment within one year

  • Outerwear growth at DTC: 2023: 27%, 2024: 17%, 2025: 29%

  • Built the women’s strategy, doubling key DTC orders for 26/27

  • Built performance marketing program delivering consistent 4–9x ROAS

The Impact