Massive TNF Road Block 05/03/2012
Spotted in the wild, a whole site media road block from the team at North Face: 
Advertiser: The North Face Location: activejunky.com Type: premium Position: Page skin, Leaderboard, ATF, BTF Size: All Add Comment Caught in the Wild 05/01/2012
 Advertiser: Nebraska Game Parks Location: Outdoornews.com Type: premium Position: ATF Size: 300x250 Caught In the Wild 05/01/2012
 Rab does it right 01/14/2012
 Living near the White Mountains has obvious social benefits, but from a business standpoint its like owning a crystal ball. From my days as an outdoor retailer, I made contact with a lot of the "elite" athletes in the area most notably those that leveraged the terrain and atmosphere of the White Mountains to the hilt. Funny how about three years ago, when I grew tired of the utilitarian techno attitude of Arc'Teryx, the guys who hung around IME up in Conway starting filling my ears with all things Rab. And this said a lot to me given that at the time Wild Things was the "local favorite" in their back yard and Rab had yet to make its formal push into the US market. Knowing that OR was coming up how awesome it was to see Rab with a formal B2B online campaign over at SNEWS. When I was running marketing and advertising at RockClimbing.com, over the years I picked up on a few slam dunks for new brands trying to peg the consumer or retail market and this was always a slam dunk. 
Whoever planned the media buy at Rab was also spot on by doing this as a roadblock. That is when both ads are in rotation, in this case using a 728 Leaderboard and the high performing 300 square. If done right, a plan will use the square as the strongest attribute for performance while leveraging the leaderboard as brand lift ( or to say it another way, pay for the CPM on the square and get as much bonus as you can from the leaderboard). Anyway, I love their stuff and should get a call out to the local rep here in New England to get the rest of the story. Speaking of the online to offline conversion, if done right Bookstores don't need digital. So who is to say all of the focus for the outdoor brand should be digital? What is happening is called entropy. The world is digesting over a decade of digital and people are actually craving connectivity, personal interaction and random encounters.
While not exacty specific to the outdoor industry, I think a lot of small to mid-size retailers are missing the boat when it comes to engaging the outdoor enthusiast. REI gets it, you can see this from walking in the door and having a list of "activities" on a whiteboard to choose from. All in all the outdoor enthusiast is a unique species with his/her own set of standards and certainly their need to connect. What can the outdoor industry learn from the entropy I mentioned above about "hub" centered bookstores? Read on, rock on Salon: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/what_slate_doesnt_get_about_bookstores/ O2O is real - Google + Adidas 01/08/2011
 Walking around town its easy to see how some businesses could use a little love. Not from their customers either, but from the brands they stock. Day in and day out I am floored by how hard small business owners are working. I know this because sometimes I drop in and need to share some Patch news with them, and often it seems like they are in the middle of something. Which is why a recent case study from Google Mobile really caught my attention: http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2010/12/adidas-boosts-in-store-sales-with.html?spref=tw "Google Mobile Ads team has released two case studies: First is, Adidas, a major sports apparel manufacturer and retailer.... Adidas was already testing mobile search ads to drive traffic to their mobile site and when Google offered them Offer Ads beta, they took the opportunity -- the beta allowed them to experiment with using mobile to drive foot traffic to their stores. "Mobile Offer Ads enable advertisers to place coupon offers right into their sponsored search listings on Google.com." "In their ad, the company offered customers 15% off purchases made in an Adidas store of $75 or more. Interested users could store the offer either via email or SMS. In addition to the coupon, the ad also provided a phone number and map of a local Adidas store, giving consumers all they would need to go in-store, redeem the offer and make a purchase. With a click-through rate 28% higher than their past mobile advertising, the mobile Offers Ads campaign doubled in-store coupon redemption and increased the average in-store order value." Online to offline. No matter what the size of the ad spend from the national brand at a national level on national digital media, if they are not doing something to drive in-store sales they are facing a lack of loyalty from retailers who work with digital savvy brands that back them up. Forget about co-op too. Tons of retailers I visit with claim to have co-op, but the process itself is too cumbersome to work through the red tape or, as I'm told, their brand rep stalled the last time they brought it up. WIth this case study, here is a concrete example of how a national brand can invest in digital media and encourage the offline sale. Higher CTR rates means more store volume and more importantly, maybe a chance for some of these retailers to take a little break. Vanns to the rescue in Montana 10/20/2010
 Seriously. Is nothing sacred? When I was shopping for a new flat screen TV I came across this odd electronics store....in Montana....of all places with a really good eCommerce site, sound marketing and very competitive pricing ( compared to Amazon). Who are these guys? Whether you know them or not you should. After building up an empire in the electronics industry, on Oct 10th the competitive and LOCAL landscape of outdoor brands in Montana changed forever. Here is the News: Vann’s expanding to outdoors recreation market as online store Gosh. Bigskycountry.com. They even secured a decent URL. It's going to be very very interesting to learn about some of the brands who plan on taking advantage of this grand Montana style idea. So wait a minute. We have REI, EMS, Altrec, Backcountry.com.....and on and on and on. What in the world is going on where anyone thinks that taking the couple of dozen "quality high touch point last mile independent retailers" in Montana and throwing them to bulk pricing, online customer experience and most of all, the commercialization of outdoor spirit is a good thing to do? The press on this is amazing, yet as we know anything BIG that is done in the outdoor space tends to attract a lot of drama. Small retailers versus the evil empire. So is it really about scale? Is is about ramping up volume? I am fine with it, really. But what I am most concerned about is the movement many outdoor brands are taking. Increased online sales come at the cost of lowering your product in asset class. And when you do this, you as a brand lose class. Your customers lose class. And if you are losing so much, and fail to make it up on volume, there goes your brand. Does anyone remember what happened to North Face back in the day with that horrible move into outlets? Hyper Local folks. This is where its at. Montana today....who knows what is brewing out there in the under belly of say New Jersey or Texas or even Idaho. Promotion needs to take place at the local level, getting into the heads of the consumers that support your brand. By reaching consumers at a local level, you turn them into clients. And this increases margin. It increases R&D for bigger and better things. In later posts, since we've beat this online branding idea to death already, I am going to show you how you can help grow sales and keep the small shops in business at the same time. The last mile of what every brand wants. You may not know this, but large scale branding from REI / KEEN / North Face and to some extent Columbia is totally missing the mark on this. It is the nimble small brand that can shake the status quo. Yeah I'm full of ideas today. I'm concerned about this trend. Columbia goes with Meetup! 10/03/2010
 It was a couple posts back, but I had mentioned earlier how there really are just a few brands that beat the drum when it comes to online innovation in this market. North Face ( via Factory Labs ) and Columbia ( via in house and BSSP ). So yeah, it comes down to huge budgets, a whole agency of talented folks working for you and lots of planning ahead. But that shouldn't stop the small brand from learning ( or borrowing ) any idea that these agencies come up with. Case in point. So Columbia has this new technology coming out called Omni- Heat. I remember the RFP from I think early in Feb or March of this year from BSSP. Anyway, Columbia is all about getting the word out on this, so they were looking well beyond online media to find ways of hitting the consumer head on, direct one-to-one. So I wake up yesterday and my Meet-Up group notifications are all lit up. Many of the local outdoor groups ( mainly with a hiking focus ) were all sending admin level messages to their groups noting that they have accepted a sponsorship from Columbia. Here is an example: from XXXX X <XXXX.XXXX@gmail.com>reply-toXXXX@meetup.com toXXX - announce@meetup.com dateSat, Oct 2, 2010 at 1:21 AMsubject[hiking] Columbia Sportswear Sponsorshipmailing list<XXXXX-list.meetup.com> Filter messages from this mailing listmailed-bymeetup.comsigned-bymeetup.comunsubscribeUnsubscribe from this mailing-listhide details Oct 2 (1 day ago) Hey All, Wanted to reach out and let everyone know that I have accepted a sponsorship for XXXXXXX from Columbia Sportswear, it's only a 3 month sponsorship but should supply us with a little fundage to continue paying for the group. ----------------------------------------------- And it wasn't just this one group, but a whole bunch of them. For those of you out there living under a digital rock, Meet Up is like Facebook but less chat and more action. You can register at Meet Up, decide on what type of group you would like to form, and then Meet Up runs behind the scenes to advertise for you, maintain registrations, and most importantly help schedule events. For the groups I'm involved with, its mostly ACTIVE and ELITE outdoor enthusiasts doing things like day hikes, overnights, AT trips, rafting trips, skydiving, big mountain bike excursions...etc..etc. So Columbia beat most of the world to the punch on this. It was super cheap for them to sponsor the groups, and in effect what they've done is captured 100% mind share with active outdoor enthusiasts in New England. I'm going to assume BSSP hit the entire country with this one idea. If everyone has been paying attention, you will remember that the elite and super active outdoor type is super hard to nail down on the internet and super expensive to find. Not only that, but on average if these Omni Socks work ( I'm assuming we get samples or something ) then on average each enthusiast will tell about 10-15 other people about the product. Win Win for Columbia and they spent a tiny amount of money on this. I'm not sure what the sponsorships on MeetUp are worth, but I can't think they are more than $50 - $100. For this amount, the outdoor brand is capturing a huge share of outdoor enthusiasts. So take note. Its only for three months, and then it looks like the slot opens up again. I would assume that based on the feedback to BSSP, Columbia will either buy out all these slots or let them expire. Stay tuned! Who do you roll with? 08/23/2010
 A couple of months ago I remember talking to an up and coming marketing manager about branding. We were knee deep in ironing out a media buy when he says to me, "....why don't I just slap this up on Google Media?" Of course, for a struggling brand, this is not a bad option. But the one part that always amazes me is when larger companies do this without a care in the world as to who they are sharing the bed with. A key part to branding on the web is having some control over where your ads are placed. This is the first part (think closed network, above the fold). The second question every major brand should be asking is, "...great, I'm on board. Now who else will be running in my rotation?" Not an issue for print. You get your slot. Not so with digital media. Unless you buy enough impressions, someone ELSE is rotating in your position. So what happens if you are a cutting edge brand ( think Patagonia ) and you are sharing your space with a media buy from GM.....or BP.....or Pizza Hut. You get the point. If you are serious about your brand, you should be serious about who you are rolling with online. Here is an example I pulled off of BNQT:  So here on the main landing page for a "lifestyle video and young male portal" you have three players. Converse holds down the skin, Mountain Dew grabs the leaderboard and PlanetEarth hangs out in the ATF Square. All of these players get "it" I could easily see a guy, aged 16, drinking a Dew, wearing his PlanetEarth Hoodie and rockin' Converse shoes. All three play well together and its obvious that the team behind the BNQT also gets how important it is to preserve brand identity on their content ( speaking of which, I need to give these guys a call, I like their style). So the next time someone tells you to buy on an open network, Google or some rag that is just scraping by, remember that because its cheap you may be sharing your branding "Joe's Tasty Chicken". And that my friend is something to be avoided.  Funny thing about North Face. Many outdoor marketers may not realize this, but TNF really drives a lot of cool innovations for online marketing and often these innovations have a trickle down effect on the market. Over the last three years, I've seen this consistently where TNF drives a new concept online and then the other players join suit. In this case, TNF is ramping up their efforts at Geo-Fencing. The technology comes from Placecast as is quite compelling. Target your outdoor enthusiast with a text based ad when they are "near" a store that carries your product. The end user has to opt in to have this enabled, and if they are lucky they score a coupon or a textual call to action to get them inside the store. Ahhhh....hear that? Like a cool glass of water after hiking all day in the hot sun. The ever so illusive "last mile" in online marketing so many out there strive for. Link to the article that goes into the details is found here: North Face Embraces Mobile Ads – Location-finding technology provided by LOC-AID For brands with a limited footprint in the retail front, using something like this could certainly drive more sales, more happy retailers and a more engaged consumer. Excellent use of technology and innovation from North Face. |   "Outdoor Mojo" is my where I apply my real world passion for the outdoors with my experience in digital and social media.
   May 2012 CategoriesAll |
