Marie Green
Nov 16, 2010

VIDEO: Timberland global marketing chief Mike Harrison

GLOBAL - Mike Harrison, global chief brand officer at Timberland, caught up with Campaign in Hong Kong to discuss the brand's success in China, CSR initiatives and target markets in 2011.

Timberland global chief brand officer Mike Harrison
Timberland global chief brand officer Mike Harrison

Harrison joined Timberland in 2003 in a senior VP position and became chief brand officer in 2009. He also worked at P&G  for 16 years from 1984 to 2000, across the US and the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan. 

Watch Harrison discuss what has worked towards the success of the company in China, where Timberland has been working towards reforesting the Horqin Desert. By the end of this year, the 42,300 square kilometer area in North China's Inner Mongolia will have been planted with one million trees, a total of more than 37 million working hours.

He also touches on adding value through building environmental features into products and how to engage consumers in environmental responsibility initiatives.

According to Harrison the majority of their advertising budget still goes towards traditional marketing but increasingly the amount of effort and resources are going towards the non-conventional. 

He goes on to identify China and India as the company's fastest growing markets and talks about further "unchartered territory" for the brand. 

In 2006, Timberland introduced an industry-first nutrition label on all its footwear boxes, providing consumers with greater transparency about the company's footprint. Following short after was the introduction of the Green Index, a measure of the environmental impact of the company's products.

Timberland also affords each of its 6,000 employees 40 hours a year to dedicate to charity work. 

The outdoor apparel company currently has 100 outlets in China. 

Source:
Campaign Asia

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