Merrell Hiking Shoes Takes on Beauty Gimmicks to Encourage Self Care Outside

Women are sold many things in the name of wellness: organic body scrubs, LED masks, and yoni stones for your you-know-what. 'More Less,' a campaign from outdoor lifestyle company Merrell and indie creative agency Lafayette American, tells women to put away their beauty guru approved spirit dust and gear up for a hike.

The campaign attacks the gimmicks and endless chase of the women’s self-care market, which posits that all you need is the right healing crystals and facial to turn your day around. “You need more ‘this’ to be more ‘that,’” the ad says. Women don’t see the outdoors as a solution to their self-care today. 'More Less' reminds women that the greatest form of self-care has always been pretty simple: get outside and get moving.

That’s a belief that Merrell has held for a long time. It was a pioneer in getting women outdoors, introducing their first women’s specific hiking shoes 20 years ago, and this work touches on that legacy. “The self-care industry has made billions of dollars by telling women they don’t measure up, and that the only way to fix that deficit is by buying certain products,” says Merrell CMO Janice Tennant. “The goal of this campaign is not just to reclaim outdoor spaces for women, but to help them reclaim themselves.”

The creative follows a series of women as they put down their gold-plated dumbbells, gear up for a hike, and seek some real oxygen therapy…with real oxygen. “When we get outside, get moving, and get to reclaiming self care, we'll find that we're more than enough,” the ad says. “And that all we ever needed…was less.” 

The work was created by female-led teams, including the Merrell marketing team, the partly women-owned Lafayette American, and female creatives and producers. The campaign will launch nationally and on television on March 1st, 2022.