HOUDINI Winning Game Strategy – Building a progressive outdoor brand through consumer-led action.

Do Good, Play Hard, Push Boundaries, Have Fun

Objective / Background / Challenge

Houdini has long been recognized as one of the most progressive brands in the outdoor industry. Deeply rooted in sustainability, innovation, and exploration, the ambition was clear: to strengthen its position as the No. 1 progressive outdoor brand globally.

The challenge was not values or credibility. It was alignment and execution.

As the brand grew, Houdini needed a clearer, shared framework that could connect purpose, consumer understanding, marketing, content, and activation across markets and teams. Sustainability and innovation were strong pillars, but the brand needed a more explicit way to translate them into consistent brand actions, storytelling, and commercial initiatives.

The objective was to create a Winning Game Strategy that could:

• Clarify brand DNA and behavior.

• Align global marketing around a common direction

• Put the consumer at the centre of decision-making

• Turn strategy into clear playbooks, formats and a roadmap for activation

Not a vision document, but a system designed to be used.

What I Did / Execution

The work followed my consumer-centric roadmap, ensuring that insight became direction and direction became action.

1. Mapping → Know the consumer

We began by deepening the understanding of Houdini’s consumers, not just as outdoor users, but as people with different motivations, relationships to nature, and expectations of a progressive brand.

This resulted in the development of three outdoor consumer archetypes, each representing distinct mindsets, behaviors, and emotional drivers. These archetypes became a strategic tool to guide decisions across brand, communication, and activation.

The mapping phase also clarified how different consumer groups engage with the brand at different levels, laying the foundation for a more nuanced and intentional marketing approach.

2. Alignment → Connect brand and belief

With the consumer as the starting point, we aligned Houdini’s purpose and ambition into a clearer brand framework.

This included:

• Refining the brand DNA and tone of voice to reflect Houdini’s ethos of adventurous exploration, responsibility and collective empowerment

• Defining how the brand should act, not just what it should say

• Creating a shared understanding of what it means to be a progressive outdoor brand in practice

This phase ensured that sustainability, innovation, and exploration were not treated as messages but as behaviors embedded in the brand.

3. Planning → Winning Game logic, archetypes and audience tiers

To move from intention to execution, we designed a clear brand marketing structure built around three audience tiers:

• Brand Shapers: initiatives that push the brand forward, challenge category norms and shape perception

• Brand Builders: initiatives that strengthen recognition, emotion and relevance

• Brand Carriers: initiatives that drive continuity, product relevance and commercial impact

These tiers were directly connected to the consumer archetypes, creating a clear logic for who the brand speaks to, how, and why in different contexts.

We also developed:

• A clear long-lead brand marketing logic

• A content and storytelling structure that balances campaigns with always-on presence

• A strategic roadmap outlining how the brand should evolve step by step over time

This planning phase turned the strategy into a working tool for teams, not a static framework.

4. Activation → Playbooks, formats and roadmap

The final phase focused on making the strategy executable.

I created:

• A Storytelling Playbook defining principles, narratives and formats

• Clear content and communication formats for different channels and objectives

• A roadmap that allowed Houdini to activate the strategy gradually, without overwhelming the organisation

Campaign-based initiatives were integrated with an always-on storytelling approach, ensuring the brand could stay present, relevant and consistent between larger moments.

The playbooks gave teams clarity on how to act, what to prioritise, and how to keep the consumer at the centre across touchpoints.

Results

The Winning Game Strategy provided Houdini with a unified, consumer-led brand system.

The outcome included:

• A clear global brand direction anchored in consumer understanding

• Defined consumer archetypes and audience tiers used to guide marketing decisions

• A shared playbook aligning brand, content and activation

• A practical roadmap enabling step-by-step implementation across markets

Most importantly, Houdini gained a framework that connects purpose, sustainability, and exploration with everyday brand actions, allowing the brand to grow with clarity while staying true to its progressive core.