GEOTREK VANS
Campaign Strategy & Creative Brief
Role: Strategy Director
Agency: backbone.
Deliverables: Market Research, Competitive Analysis, Consumer Insights, Brand Positioning, Creative Brief
The Ask
Geotrek builds premium camper van conversions out of Boulder, Colorado. A Quality product, honest pricing, and direct relationships. The problem wasn't the van. It was that almost nobody knew the van existed.
Our job was to figure out who Geotrek's real buyer was, why they buy, and build the strategic foundation to put Geotrek in front of them at exactly the right moment.
The Problem
Geotrek competes in a crowded premium conversion market against well-funded brands like Outside Van, VanWorks, and StoryTeller Overland, each with stronger organic content footprints, broader distribution, and larger marketing budgets.
Geotrek's advantage wasn't price. It was access. Direct-to-buyer relationships, honest craftsmanship, and a product genuinely engineered for real adventure. The gap was awareness: potential buyers never considered Geotrek during the research phase because they'd never heard of them.
The Research
We ran a full swot, competitive, and benchmark analysis to understand where Geotrek sat in the market and where the real whitespace was.
What We Found
Competitive Landscape: Outside Van leans into high-performance and athlete credibility, but prices out accessibility and runs long lead times. VanWorks has a strong service reputation and RVIA certification, but limited community presence. StoryTeller Overland has the biggest community narrative, but loses control of the customer experience through third-party dealerships.
The gap across all three: none of them own the life inflection point buyer. They're selling adventure. Nobody was selling the decision to finally go.
Benchmark Brands: We studied YETI, REI, and Rivian. Not competitors, but brands building in the same emotional territory.
YETI proved that real people doing real things outperform celebrities every time. REI showed that community-as-brand builds loyalty money can't replicate. Rivian demonstrated that the owner community is the product — and that pre-purchase belief can be worth billions.
The through-line: the best outdoor brands don't sell gear. They sell identity permission.
The Insight
Nobody buys a camper van on a random Tuesday. They buy it the week they retire, the month their last kid leaves for college, or the day they realize they can work on a mountain in Montana. The van isn't the purchase; it's the green light to a new chapter.
This reframe changed everything. The van conversion market talks endlessly about specs, layouts, and off-grid capability. Geotrek needed to talk about the moment someone finally decides to go.
Supporting Data
Adults 55–64 with no children at home are 125% more likely to own a motorhome
72.2% of campers travel with their spouse or partner
In 2025, approximately 32.6 million Americans — 22% of the workforce — worked remotely, expanding who "vanlife" is actually for
Who We’re Talking To
Beth & George - The Explorers: Ages 60 and 63, recently retired from careers in healthcare and data analysis, Indiana. Combined household income of $80K–$100K. They've spent decades building a life worth living. Now it's finally time to live it. They're not chasing adrenaline — they're chasing time, each other, and the freedom they deferred for 30 years. They trust Patagonia, drive a Jeep, and plan trips on Roadtrippers.
Hank: The Explorer 42, Construction Manager, Jackson, Wyoming. Making $90K–$120K+, single, with an Australian Shepherd named Boggo and a growing fear that he's been talking about doing something bigger for too long. He's not flashy — he believes in buying quality and hates the idea of looking back with regret. Rides Trek, shoots GoPro, skis Black Crows. The gear is already dialed. He just needs to pull the trigger on the life.
Both personas share one thing: they're not shopping for a van. They're shopping for permission to start the next chapter.
Where We Landed
Brand Tone: Honest. Capable. Unpretentious.
Geotrek doesn't perform adventure. It enables it, for the people who've done the hard part. Now it's just about getting out the door.
The Creative Brief
All of the above, the research, the insight, the personas, the positioning, distilled into a single-page brief to hand off to creative.
The Team
