What’s in a Brand?

A Patagonia grant to the Virginia Rivers Defense Fund triggered this post on the VRDF blog.

This week, I received a call from the enviro point person at the Patagonia retail store in the Wash DC area.  He notified me that he was holding a sizeable check for the VRDF.  This check arrived about six weeks after an employee in that same store contacted me, asking how Patagonia could help our cause.  One of their good customers asked the store manager to help arrange a fly fishing trip to the Jackson River, the research for which led them to VRDF site and their outreach to me.

This strong sign of support caused me to ruminate on this question “what’s in a brand?”  I wondered what made the response of this retail store (where I’ve never shopped before), so different from many of the other outdoor brands where I’ve spent considerable money over the years.

Read the rest of the post here.

If you're not familiar with VRDF and their fight to protect the public's access to Virginia's Jackson River you should be.