An Eyes-On Field Test

Objective:

In conversations of clarity, quality and excellence, ZEISS will certainly get brought up. The German optics company has more staying power, stature and heritage than any 10 of the company’s competitors combined.

When the brand approached us, they needed help differentiating three distinct binocular series: TERRA ED, CONQUEST HD and Victory SF. When everything you make can be considered “high-end German glass,” the lines start to get blurred. 

Long a fixture in the nature viewing and birding communities, the brand was also interested in establishing more footing in the hunting community.

Strategy:

We created three separate campaigns for the binocular lines. Each highlighted the true selling points and positioning of the lines, telling the story or the “why” behind each.

TERRA ED was positioned as an obvious choice for the entry-level crowd by pointing out the “entry-level for ZEISS isn’t the same as entry-level for everyone else.” Consumers would be getting a product of a much higher quality with the ZEISS name. 

CONQUEST HD is an obvious choice for those whose passions, hobbies and professions demand top quality, without needing — or being willing to pay for — the absolute best.

The Victory SF represents ZEISS’s very best — which is to say the world’s very best. For this campaign, we needed to show the value of paying for top-grade German engineering and construction. Those of us that are content paying for “good enough” need to see what they’re missing out on.

I wanted to find the right person to help us tell this story; their impressions of the product would be borne out in real-time, giving our reader a surrogate learning experience.

The perfect person would be one that spends a lot of time looking through binoculars. They’d need to be able to see and appreciate the clarity, light gathering and definition in top-quality glass. This would also need to be someone who was accustomed to looking through “pretty good” optics. 

Jeremy Anderson is the head of the Mule Deer Foundation in Utah. He spends a lot of time tracking habitat and her numbers, and owned Vortex binoculars.

We took Jeremy out in the the field to scout for mule deer and he gave us his impressions on the Victory SF. It was a great opportunity to see his true opinions, and it was this authenticity that painted a picture of true excellence to ZEISS’ target customer.