Designing distinction: 3 Tactics for becoming an outdoor brand of choice
Outdoor recreation is booming, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find revenue growth
In 2025, 183.2 million people in the U.S. participated in outdoor recreation, representing 59% of the population aged six and older. Yet in mature categories, a growing market comes with increasingly discerning customers.
After the pandemic boom and amid rising prices, consumers are more selective about where they spend on their hobbies. Innovation, sustainability, and quality can still motivate them to invest, but brands need to offer more than incremental improvements. The products that stand out are those that understand what people value and give them a compelling reason to choose something new.
This creates a demanding environment for brands. Functional shortcomings are quickly exposed, established conventions are closely scrutinized, and difference for its own sake rarely earns credibility. In mature and crowded categories, new products must meet a high standard while offering a meaningful reason to choose one brand over another.
Across our recent outdoor work, three connected tactics have helped us create that reason: finding innovation across the whole journey, turning brand meaning into product advantage, and building product ranges that work as coherent systems.
01 Connect brand expression to product functionality
Standing apart in a mature category requires more than a recognizable brand. The most credible forms of distinction connect what that brand represents with a meaningful improvement to the experience.
When designing the Steelfire Griddle for Solo Stove, we began with the social role of the brand. Solo Stove’s existing line of fire pits are designed to bring people together, creating a natural focal point for gathering. We saw an opportunity to extend that role to the griddle, turning the act of cooking into another way for people to gather and participate.
Research revealed that cooking on a griddle can feel both interactive and somewhat theatrical. People congregate around the cooking surface to watch, while the chef themselves moves between cooking, serving, and conversation. Conventional rectangular griddles typically position the cook on one side, limiting access and doing little to support the social nature of the experience.
From this opportunity, the race-track shaped surface was created. Its rounded form makes the griddle approachable from multiple sides and easier to place at the center of a gathering. Softened geometry creates continuity with Solo Stove’s other circular products without simply repeating them.
The shape is distinctive because it has a reason to exist. It expresses the brand’s role in bringing people together while supporting the way people cook and gather. Rather than treating functionality and brand expression as separate layers, the design allows each to strengthen the other.
02 Innovate across the whole journey, not just core function
A product brief often begins with a product’s primary function. Focusing too narrowly on that moment obscures some of the most meaningful opportunities for innovation.
In recent research across outdoor cooking and mobile outdoor living, we looked beyond individual products to understand the full context of how they’re used. By examining how people plan, prepare, transport, use, clean, pack, and store their equipment, we uncovered opportunities for innovation across the entire experience.
For example, in outdoor cooking, some of the most consequential frustrations occur before and after the product’s core moment of use. In another project, the challenge was not simply storing equipment, but managing its repeated transition between packed, transported, and deployed states.
This perspective shift moves the question from “How can we improve this product?” to “Where can we create the most value?” By identifying where friction exists, brands can prioritize opportunities that meaningfully improve the overall experience rather than optimizing a single interaction.
03 Build a system, not a collection
A strong product portfolio should work as a system rather than a collection of individual products. Each product needs a clear role while sharing enough logic, character, and purpose to make the broader range easier to understand and use.
Our long-running work with Plano has taken this approach across its fishing, hunting, and general storage products. By studying how people move and manage their gear across contexts—from garage to truck to boat—we identified ways to make the entire system more efficient. Stacking and nesting were key principles, allowing trunks, stows, and tackle boxes to fit together seamlessly for transport while remaining easily accessible.
This extended beyond just physical organization, creating a more cohesive product experience across the brand. Shared proportions, materials, interactions, and visuals make products easier to recognize and navigate. Modular systems allow customers to build an assortment around their evolving needs.
The commercial response reflected the value of that approach. In its first ten months, Plano EDGE exceeded its original sales forecast by 50%, while the specialty boxes exceeded their forecasts by more than 100%.
Creating products people have a reason to choose
As outdoor categories continue to grow, distinction is not a “nice to have” added in at the end of the design process. It needs to be considered from the start, informing what gets designed and why.
Distinction emerges from understanding the customer’s full experience. Finding a role the brand can credibly own, then designing products, integrations, and systems that work together to deliver value. By connecting these perspectives, we help brands create products that feel new to the category, make their value clear to customers, and remain credible to the people who know the activity best.