Raising awareness for the environment
VAUDE’s marketing messages come down to one common denominator: "Your life, your spirit". This communicates that VAUDE manufactures high-performance gear produced under exemplary and fair ecological criteria – the highest possible performance coupled with ecological and socially responsible production.
Without an awareness of fair and environmentally friendly production, there would be no demand for sustainable products. As a manufacturer, we serve as a role model for responsible outdoor experiences that our customers can also sense through our communications.
Two spheres of life influenced by one way of life – one that’s sustainable and eco-aware. This spirit of oneness with nature is something that outdoor enthusiasts consistently put into practice in their everyday lives. And VAUDE supports them – with environmentally friendly, fairly produced gear for the office, biking sports, mountain sports and more. This is exactly what the campaign "Your life, your spirit" conveys.
Brand creates clarity and orientation
To help us act with a unity of purpose and communicate consistently – both in marketing as well as in other company departments – we developed a set of guiding principles in 2014 and implemented them throughout the entire company in 2015. These guiding principles describe our roots, our values, our incentive and our convictions and reflect what VAUDE stands for as a brand. From this document, frameworks such as our Corporate Identity (CI) can be derived which allow us to send messages “from one source” to the media as well as in communication with customers.
The VAUDE CI consists of various elements:
- Corporate Design: determines the visual appearance
- Corporate Wording: determines the contents and the manner of communication
- Imagery: determines the substantive and formal requirements for our (moving) images
- Behavior guidelines for specific issues: defines the desired behavior of VAUDE employees - see "Company Philosophy".
We set these standards not only in terms of content, but also in choosing of means of communication. For environmental considerations, we try to replace print products with digital media as much as possible. This has helped us to reduce our paper consumption. In addition, we compensate for all emissions stemming from paper consumption.
Internal communication
In the VAUDE Guiding Principles, specific guidelines are set regarding how to put into practice, visualize and communicate about sustainability. To help our employees be involved with our corporate identity, content is updated regularly and passed on to everyone in the company in our "VAUDE Wegweiser”.
A strong focus on experiencing nature mindfully
Sustainability is a guiding theme in our choice of advertising.
As a sustainable, innovative mountain sports brand, we try to keep our ecological footprint as small as possible for our activities. We act considerately towards people and nature. We also follow the "by fair means" principle in mountaineering and biking: tours should be managed as much as possible with one's own power and without the use of artificial or technical aids such as lifts. We make our advertising film and photo shootings as environmentally friendly as possible and convey this approach in our images. For example, our bikers don’t ride off-trail through pristine nature, but stay on existing trails; ski tourers don’t rely on ski lifts, etc.
Employees as brand ambassadors
In order for the content of our marketing to come across authentically, it makes sense that our employees also identify with this philosophy.
To promote this, we offer them ongoing mountain sports and bike sports activities. These trips are organized sustainably, for example, by using eco-friendly transportation. The shared outdoor experiences raise awareness in our employees for the preservation of nature as a "playground" for future generations.
Message in training courses
The VAUDE Academy offers sustainability training courses for all employees. In addition, our sales representatives and international distributors receive training every six months about new information on product sustainability, environmental protection and social responsibility.
VAUDE provides training materials for all relevant product segments that communicate sustainability aspects of each product group. Much of this information is also publicly available to retailers and consumers on our help.vaude.com platform.
Individual courses cover the following themes:
Making sustainability something to be experienced
We also communicate just how committed we are to sustainability in product presentations at trade shows around the world, in VAUDE order rooms and in VAUDE stores.
Sustainability isn't only put into practice with the VAUDE Collection, but also in the design of exhibition stands at trade shows and store design concepts. For our exhibition spaces and store designs, we use environmentally friendly raw materials and environmentally friendly production elements such as banners and displays.
The VAUDE Green Shape Campus
To provide our dealers with factually well-founded information on sustainability themes, we regularly invite them to participate in our Green Shape Campus at the company headquarters in Obereisenbach.
The goal is to provide a comprehensive body of knowledge on sustainability. This training is intended to help dealers be able to inform and advise their customers competently, to respond to difficult questions and to pass on the issues to colleagues in the trade.
The complete stay at VAUDE is aligned with our sustainability motto: participants stay in VAUDE's Tent City, all catering is regional and organic and the program takes place out in nature.
