How Patagonia Turns Packaging Into a Brand Statement with Jennifer Patrick

Guest: Jennifer Patrick, Global Packaging and Branding Director at Patagonia

Summary:

Jennifer shares her journey from photography, creative direction, and print production to leading global packaging and branding at Patagonia, an iconic brand known for sustainability. She discusses how sustainability influences every decision, innovative packaging changes that saved millions of plastic pieces and pounds of paper, and how technology like QR codes transformed customer engagement.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Jennifer’s career path and creative background
• Patagonia’s sustainability-first approach in packaging
• Removing 37 million plastic Swiftachs
• Hang Tag redesign saving 175,000 pounds of paper
• Leveraging QR codes for global engagement and activism
• Customer feedback and data insights
• Patagonia’s Work in Progress impact report
• Advice for brands and consumers on sustainability

Resources Mentioned:

Patagonia's Progress Report
Patagonia’s sustainability initiatives
NetPlus material innovation

Contact:

Follow Patagonia on Instagram or visit Patagonia.com for updates and the impact report.

Closing Thoughts:

Jennifer emphasizes that small shifts can create big impacts in packaging and sustainability. She encourages collaboration across industries and conscious consumer behavior to drive meaningful change.

Thank you for tuning in to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors!

Chapters:

00:00
The Journey to Patagonia: A Unique Background

02:42
Sustainability at the Core of Packaging Decisions

05:33
Innovative Packaging Solutions and Their Impact

08:11
Engaging Customers Through Technology

10:55
Building Community and Feedback Loops

13:46
Patagonia's Role in Environmental Responsibility

16:39
Future Innovations and Product Developments

https://anewearthproject.com/collections/new-earth-approved

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

0:06

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. In today's episode, I connected with Jennifer Patrick. She is the global packaging and brand director at the iconic brand Patagonia. I'm amazed by the story she tells and the great insights she provides. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Thank you so much, Jennifer Patrick. We appreciate you joining us today. I'm so excited to interview you, the global packaging and brand director at Patagonia. How are you? I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to have you on such a fan of your brand and looked up to what you do there for years. And can't, can't wait to talk to you about all these details, but you have a really unique background where you were focusing on photography for many years. How did that kind of prepare you to be a global packaging and brand director for such an iconic brand? Yeah, my photography background was a lot of fun. In full transparency, a lot of my roles that were in photography also included a really heavy component of print production and creative management. And I think a lot of that throughout all of my roles, whether it was at magazines or I worked for a high-end publisher, where I did photography and these other roles really helped set me up to understand how materials worked, sustainability, how to manage creatives. And my work in photography was so fulfilling in creative ways, and it really did give me a good eye for color and detail. But... I think at the end of the day, when I look back on photography and what I did in my 20s, a lot of it is just amazing experiences and a lot of good times. So I have a lot of fondness for it, but as far as building packaging and making decisions around that, I would probably give that credit more to the creative management and print production side of things. Well, that makes sense. We were talking about before the podcast started that we both like to mentor young students and work with the future of packaging and branding. And I think what you've done in your career is exactly that. You've, you've learned from many different aspects and learned from many great people like yourself. Well, Patagonia is iconic and just an incredible brand known for their sustainability focus. How does that factor into your daily work there? in general, no matter what role you're in, it factors into pretty much every decision you make daily. And I think with packaging, it really is just a daily conversation, whether we're talking about from a creative perspective, how we're designing packaging to create packaging that does not have very much waste, but still supports the product and communicates with our customer. We also talk a lot about sourcing and where we're sourcing and how we're sourcing. So no matter what we're talking about, there is always a focus on how we can do our work sustainably and support all of these amazing products that start from a sustainability conversation. So it's really exciting. not even from just a sustainability standpoint, but I have found that it makes me more creative. We have to find innovative ways to do things differently. And I really like that component of my job and how I think about pushing the team to do things different. And it's made us really be creative and innovative. it can be hard, but I feel like with anything creative, sometimes when there are limitations that you have to be creative and think around, it really ends up being inspiring and a good thing at the end of the day. I love that. For this interview, I went out and bought a Patagonia shirt, which I'm wearing today. And I was so impressed with the quality. I've worn it a dozen times already, and I just bought it a few weeks ago. it's the quality is so great. It's so comfortable. I could see having this shirt for many, many years. And I think that's the wonderful part of Patagonia that it's almost like a family heirloom that you're buying. You're investing in your future of fashion. No, it's true. I mean, that really is sustainability at our core, making products that are quality that will last your lifetime. And that can be handed down. You know, I know we met at Sea Change and it was so cool because one of the attendees came up to me and I forget his name and I hope he doesn't hate me when he sees this. But he showing me photos of his grandkids and his daughter. Oh. just multiple generations of wearing the same baby outfit. And it was so cute. And I encouraged him to share that with our Instagram team because that's exactly what it's about is when we're thinking about the environment and we're still a business that's for profit, but how can we change how business is ran and really putting the environment at the forefront? And I think it does, it all starts with quality and that's not just with product, but packaging too. I agree. And I was so impressed with your presentation at C Change, you and Saloni and just incredible presentation. Just well done. First of all, thank you for that. I was so excited that you agreed to be on this show after that presentation, but you were talking about some of your innovations in packaging that you've been able to accomplish, which are, a huge impact. The numbers were staggering. Can you talk through a couple of those examples with this group? Sure. And yeah, I mean, what an honor it was to be on a stage with two women who are leaders in the industry. That was such a special moment for me. That was really a great opportunity. uh they're just incredible people. yeah, and, and just fun. I feel like I made two friends out of that moment. so you can't lose with that. But talking about some of the interesting things that we've done at Patagonia, that's really leaned heavily into, I feel multiple wins and the environment being one of them. But also back to what I was talking about that. inspiring creative and innovation and even workflows and saving money, which doesn't always go hand in hand when you think about creating packaging that's more sustainable. One of the ones that I talked about was removing Swift tags from all of our packaging. And, you know, that really did mean looking at every single piece of packaging that we had already created. and redesigning die lines so that we could attach products like gloves or sun masks to packaging without plastic. And we moved to a paper string. And at one point, we'd even use cotton instead. But that project removed 37 million plastic Swift tacks from our packaging. So that was a huge win. And again, Also a challenge, right? But that one we were really excited about. And then one of our bigger, more recent changes with packaging was our Hang Tag program. And when we looked at our Hang Tags, at one point it had three inserts that were covered by a clamshell Hang Tag. And it was really great information, right? Where it was calling out features of products or environmental. materials that we were using. But we found that customers were not really engaging with these hang tags. And we, think I calculated it and I don't think I shared this, but I I looked at our creative team, the packaging team, also our distribution center team, because if some of that information is printed, it has to get removed if it ends up being wrong at some point, which happens. I think through out one season, our teams were spending around 365 days worth of time creating these inserts that customers were not engaging with because they were unique to each product too. yeah, I mean, that alone was pretty crazy to think about. And so we stepped back and thought about how can we utilize technology to still give our customers information and product features. And we had tried the QR code before and it's had fits and starts, right? And I don't know, like 25 years and at one point when people couldn't just point their camera at it, nobody engaged with it. But luckily this time around, it was really coming off of COVID and during COVID when people could just point their camera at the QR. People were just being trained naturally because of We were in. So that was a of a big win. So we decided to eliminate the feature inserts or all of our inserts, replace them with a single hang tag with a QR code on the back that had redirection capabilities. So really at this point, we were expanding how we were communicating with our customers globally. So in Europe, if you scan the same QR code, it would go to EU website in their language. or in Chile or in the US or Canada. So it also gave us an opportunity to connect with our customers with activism opportunities and talk about whether it was going on in their area versus just that stagnant static moment whenever we printed hang tags. But what this did from an environmental standpoint is the first season, we saved 40 million hang tags, which is about 175,000 pounds of paper from landfills by making this shift. It really also gave us a lot of flexibility with regulatory changes that were happening at that time. There was a large money savings associated with this because we weren't buying the materials. And really now I'm able to capture data and how customers are interacting with our packaging, which I think has been something that's really hard to do in the past, but extremely valuable with how we make decisions and how we see customers interacting with product. So that one was kind of a multi, I want to say triple threat, but I think there was even more than three wins from that one. But that one was a a small shift that made such a huge impact. And I think with packaging, from what I've seen, it is about small shifts with big impact. And it doesn't have to be, you know, we invented this brand new material that doesn't harm anything in the world. It can just be these little things, you know? And I love that. I think that that's really one of the coolest things about working in packaging. I totally agree. What an incredible story. And I remember taking notes thinking, my goodness, this is great. can't wait to ask Jennifer to be on the podcast. Cause I want to tell this story because oftentimes we get pushed back and they say, sustainable packaging costs more. I'm not interested. Well, here's the story where not only does it save money, not only does it save time, but your customers like it more. And you get that feedback loop. of the from the technology. I'd love to hear some of the feedback you've gotten from your customers with this massive change. Well, just from a data standpoint, we've had a 25 % increase in engagement. So I can look at the numbers from when we first released this in 2023 to now. Those numbers have grown pretty substantially in how much we're getting engagement. And it's kind of interesting because I can even see things like our more technical products, like our packs or our snow jackets. Those products actually get more engagement. than maybe our baggies or something like that, where there aren't as many technical features. I don't get customers sending me all of the hang tags back with a ton of packaging in the mail anymore. And I think, from what I understand and what I hear from our customers, it really represents the brand showing up in a minimal way, still being able to share features with them on the hang tag. It's really standing by what we as a brand believe. And it's even rolled over into our retail staff being able to be excited about the Hang Tag and actually use the Hang Tag in ways that they weren't before to help support our customers. So I feel like there's a loop there that we've been able to create with this technology on the Hang Tag that's been successful with multiple different ways of interacting with our customers. I love that story of how your customers would send materials back and say, Hey, I don't need this stuff. know what I'm buying. And I think that is, it's such a great, you know, it's, it's full circle there because these are, these are our people. These are our sustainability friends that are trying to make a positive impact on the world. And so for them to say, stop, we got it. You know, just give us one, one little tag that has the size on it, you know, It's It's cool. And it does say a lot about the Patagonia customer that they're willing to take the time to package all of that up and send me a note about how frustrated they are to buy a Patagonia product that, you know, isn't meeting their standards from an environmental standpoint. And I just I really appreciate that that kind of customer and that that partnership with them. And it pushes me. Yes. Yeah, me too. We can all be better, right? Well, you have an incredible amount of influence with 1.1 million followers on LinkedIn for Patagonia and 5.4 million followers on Instagram. Can you tell us how you're using that network to share this sustainability message to your customers? Yeah, Patagonia really uses this to show what a responsible business looks like. I think each post is intended to spark action, build community, and really move the needle. I mean, even on our packaging, what we've been talking about, right, there's opportunity there when we've used less waste, but also QR codes and expanding how we can even talk with our customers on product. But yeah, I think that a lot of it is about trying to be an influence and open to how we can do better and influence other businesses and people. that's a such a great point. It's, it's not just a one way thing. It's a, it's an opportunity for you to get that feedback from millions of people and, and scan that information for key points of, Hey, we, you know, what if you tried this? This would be great. have you heard about this material or yeah, that kind of thing. So why it shouldn't, I've always thought that social media should be interactive and not just a brands posting. This is how you should think consumer way. And so I think I love that that your team actually responds and replies not just with words, but with action. Right, well, I mean, you can't build a community with a one-way conversation. Right, exactly. No, it has to feel like a team and like a real family and community. I love that. So what other, what, can other brands learn from Patagonia and how can we all work together to affect this positive change in the, in the world? think Patagonia is not a perfect company. We don't have all the answers. And so I think just like we were kind of talking about, we need other businesses to jump in if we want to make the apparel industry and the business as a whole less environment, less harming the environment less. so not only are we an environmental company, but I think we're also very open to experiment and try new things. and share out learnings with people and really help us progress further as a team. And I think that that community as a business community is really helpful. And Patagonia makes a pretty huge effort to share what's worked, what hasn't worked so that businesses can learn from that. And I think we talked about this a little bit, but we're going to be releasing our first ever impact impact report, and it's called a work in progress report, which will come out on November 12th. And it'll be the most comprehensive view of our business impact, ownership structure, and environmental giving we've ever released. So that's really exciting for all of us. And I think a really good way for other businesses to see what we've been up to, how we've learned, where we're still trying to learn, and an opportunity for us all to come together. on some of the issues we're all looking at. really appreciate it when companies take the time and resources to put out something like that, because I think that's exactly what it does. It teaches other brands, teaches consumers how they can be a part of the solution. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's very exciting. I look forward to that. How can consumers make a difference other than buying Patagonia equipment and clothing? Well, I I think that that's one thing we've worked really hard on with our community is shifting the idea of us being consumers to product owners. we talked a little bit about this at the beginning, right? Where I've seen people hand down product for multiple generations and how you feel the quality of that shirt. And I think it's buying a high quality product, but also treating the products that you buy in the same way that you're treating a car or a appliance or something that's not disposable. I think we've gotten into a space with clothing where it feels more disposable than it should. uh I think also Patagonia is really trying to build in programs like repair or warnware where we'll buy back product and resell it. But really at the end of the day, I think that It's just about keeping products longer, buying less, and trying to look at the environmental issue even from a quality perspective. So you're buying better products. And yeah, I think that's just a really good place to start is really being aware and conscious of what you're purchasing and making it a long-term buy for you. Yeah. I love that. It's a, it's not fast fashion. It's a, it's the opposite. I think you're, setting the standard for what it should be in my opinion. then what's next for Patagonia? Any exciting new products you can, you can fill us in on what's, what's the secret, a new product coming out that you haven't released yet that you can't wait to tell people about. I know we got to release everything, all secrets on this podcast, I think. Well, our fall 26 product line is super exciting. We have a lot of products that we've designed for a changing climate, which has really been a shift for how we've been designing products at Patagonia. That's been really great. So we have sun protection with UPF Innovation coming out with our CAP cool sun line. We also have our big wave surf PSI vest getting revamped. So a second version of that coming out. That is a really cool product for big wave surfers. Also, we have redesigned all of our base layers that keep us warm and dry and comfortable. So you can kind of see how it's focused on sun or being able to layer different base layers. The other really cool thing that we have coming out is we've redesigned all of our wetsuit line to have a better fit, but it's also with a net plus lining. So for anybody who doesn't know what net plus is, that is material made of fishing nets taken out of the ocean. So that's a really interesting story. But also, again, I have to mention our progress report. That's another big thing we're really excited about that's coming out when we're looking at our shortcomings, our successes, and talk about some of these stories that we've looked at that have made us realize carbon neutral was not enough and the challenges of getting to net zero as a company. It's an incredible task and it's overwhelming and can be daunting for most of us. So I feel your pain. uh A lot of the team at Atlantic Packaging are surfers, including our president, Wes Carter. So I'll be sure to tell them about that new surf gear that you've got coming out. That's great. I can't wait to see him in it. Yeah. So what's the best way to get in touch with you and your team there? Well, I think folks can follow us on social media. They can go to Patagonia.com, download the progress report. But yeah, for the most part, that's the best way to stay in touch with us. Thank you so much, Jennifer. This has been awesome. Anything else you want to tell us before we close the show out here? If you feel good about it. a big thank you to you and happy to be in your orbit and have had this conversation. It's really exciting to have these connections with audiences. So thank you. honored and so thankful and appreciative of you and the work that you and your team at Patagonia are doing is really in line with what we do here at Atlantic Packaging. And so I'm thankful for that. So thanks again for being on. Appreciate it. Great, bye.