A million sheep, a million stories

I got this from our own Jan VDB's facebook newsfeed:

New Zealand merino wool clothing company Icebreaker allows customers to trace each garment they buy back to the sheep stations where the merino fibre was grown. Back in '97 Icebreaker started buying its merino wool direct from growers, a system it says was a first in the industry. Beginning last month, it began including on most Icebreaker garments an internal label bearing a unique 'Baacode' number. By following the instructions on an attached swingtag, customers can enter that code on the Icebreaker website and trace the wool in their garment through to its origins on the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Icebreaker sources its pure merino wool from more than 120 sheep stations and over 1 million sheep; through photos and video, customers can see the living conditions of the particular animals that produced their wool, meet the high country farmers who run the sheep stations, and follow the production process to the factories that knit, dye, finish, cut, manufacture and ship the garments

Via 

To see what you get if you have your BAAcode, surf to the icebreaker site and click on "Click here to get a DEMO Baacode" link.

Tom, one of our creatives said he has seen a campaign with the same mechanism but back than the campaign was for bananas.

Still it remains a cool and powerful idea.