"Claim less, deliver more" — is Patagonia doing so in the case of the NYT ad?

What's wrong with this picture? Great ad but and you believe its sincerity? Might it it simply just a cleverer (and thus slimier way) to sell products? Create an institutional bond so the customer will think of Patagonia fondly? Or is life more complicated? Positive/negative, black/white. Yin/Yang, thesis/antithesis, all wrapped in one great jacket?

Read Patagonia's own explanation:

The Cleanest Line: Don't Buy This Jacket, Black Friday and the New York Times.

Ad, of course, copyright by Patagonia.

I love Patagonia products and have many of its items. (Though I haven't bought as many in the past few years because the colors are yucky.) Still, Patagonia is top-notch and I have never been sorry about buying anything.

BUT...I noticed something: a huge number of snail mail, paper catalogs. They are lovely and arousing for any materialist such as moi.

I've been keeping track of them for the past almost-a-year and steady as a rock, I get one every month, on average.

See next post.