07 Nov Merrell Launches “One Trail” Project To Showcase And Celebrate Diversity
Merrell has launched the One Trail project, a campaign celebrating diversity on the trail and seeking to contemporize attitudes about outdoor participation. The first element of the campaign is a mural of portraits taken on trails across the country on September 1, 2018, commemorated in an online gallery at Merrell.com/OneTrail.
On September 1, 2018, Merrell dispatched 50 photographers (one in each of the 50 states) to their favorite local trails, and together, they created an unscripted portrait of America – on a single day.
“The idea of this project is simple: celebrate the diversity of the trail by capturing a moment in time,” said Strick Walker, CMO at Merrell. “The outdoors are enjoyed by everyone. Hopefully the project will become an inspirational reflection of that reality.”
The individuals included in the campaign are not paid models, athletes, or social media influencers. The group of participating photographers are as diverse as the real subjects they encountered. They include well-known outdoor photographers like Jeff Johnson (who photographed California’s Half Dome), Ryan Redcorn (a citizen of the Osage Nation who lives on the Osage Reservation in Pawhuska, Oklahoma) and a variety of other talented photographers with different backgrounds and passions.
The gallery will live on Merrell.com/OneTrail and will be featured as a 2-page spread in select national magazines. Merrell will also bring the images to life in gallery-format on Nov. 8 at the Outdoor Retailer show in Denver, CO.
“Our goal is to document the trail like this repeatedly – and in different parts of the world,” continued Walker. “The trail is a great unifier. It doesn’t care who you are.”