What can I say?  It's been too long since my last post, there is new stuff to talk about, the oil spill is (almost) over and some of us....are thinking about the upcoming snow season.

Where have I been?  Out.  In the wild.  Deep in the woods.  Hiking so much its insane, camping, using all sorts of new gear, kayaking, surfing, kitesurfing and the newest venture is being more into mountain biking.  I've traveled up to Acadia, down to Bethany Beach, DE, the GUNKS, Seabrook Beach and even a short stay in Cape May New Jersey.  But what does that have to do with online media for outdoor enthusiasts?

Using the gear.  Living it.  For all of you marketing managers out there, this is me standing on a soap box and getting the word out.  Working 8-6 M-F in an office does nothing for understanding your customer.  I've had so many in depth conversations with consumers, from the "guy living in a van" and mountain biking the state parks, to the newly minted internet millionaire surfing his brains out on the shores of the Cape.

The conversations are a bonus, but its seeing the gear in action and seeing how people are using the new technology that matters most.  Which.....brings me to something special I've been sharing with a few select clients   Chitika. These guys are charging forward with a simple interface that has allowed some of my customers to see a 3x increase in CTR for their branded online media.  The price is right, the technology is sound and for now, the company IMO is still off the radar. 

Peck around their site and tell me what you think.  And if you are thinking about the fall or winter media spend ( as you should be ) give me a call and I can go over some ideas.

Here is an idea that struck me on the head this morning.  Typical media planning activities for agencies who cover the outdoor market tend to focus on print and online media.  We all know that outdoor enthusiasts spend a considerable time online, so in order to reach them you need to make sure your media planner has the correct sites dialed in for the engagement.

While at NameMedia, through the couple hundred campaigns we ran for outdoor brands, one sticking point was that "last mile"  And its a doozy.  How can an outdoor brand advertise online without upsetting their brick and mortar channel?  On the one hand they are driving online sales, and yet their main focus is on the open to buy dollars floating around for each pre-season from established traditional retailers.

I'd like to take this concept one step further.  Let's say you are a super large brand, and your media planner (located in NYC) is in charge of the mechanics behind your media buy.  Lots of research, lots of planning.  To me, that is like spending a ton of time in college and grad school and then applying for a job.  The person interviews you and asks what real world experience you have.  Case in point with the media planner.  How many outdoor brands can interview the agency and ask what type ( or how many) outdoor activities does the media planner engage in?  Because without this, the planning is done purely on market research.  Where is the tie-in with the consumer at the retail level? 

I'm sure there is a ton of value on the media planning side that I am missing here.  That is fine.  Outdoor Mojo is no PHD.  But we do have is another company called Powerline Sports.  This started out as a bricks and mortar shop for kitesurfing.  Over the years, the biggest keystone sales came from the softgoods and clothing.  So the natural migration should be into companies like Patagonia, Life is Good, Rail Riders...etc..etc.

And here is where this goes.  What is the media planning from Outdoor Mojo was somehow tied into the market research behind Powerline Sports?  This is to say, a media plan could be developed and then feedback and results could come from the retail side....in real time.  And what if you were a small outdoor brand who couldn't afford a full license from Leisure Trends to get at this data.  Like this:

• Gather market intelligence from outdoor consumers on variances on branding before an online campaign goes live
• Understand more from consumers about what makes them buy prAna over Horny Toad.  And then take this info and apply it to the media campaign
• Use survey cards, from consumers, as to what sites they visit online.  And then take this info and use it to establish reach with targeted media buys
• For smaller brands, develop a program where "beta" testing can occur for a product and then have the consumer pipe back market research while the media campaign is being developed.
• In store market focus groups using Elite and Super ac
  
• Kitesurfers are the upper elite when it comes to outdoor brands.  Trust me, I know.  These are not the type of people who shop at Dick's Sporting goods thinking they will find Rab or Arc'teryx.  Wouldn't it be great to tap into them in real time, when they are NOT online?
  

These are all very very premature ideas.  I would love to hear from some more marketing managers out there on their ideas.  How would you see the benefit of having a retail store with your products tied into the agency that administers your branding and reach?

So I wake up one morning and head into my job at NameMedia like it was any other day.  Almost two years to the date, where I had been in charge of marketing and sales for a group of owned and operated outdoor enthusiast sites ( Rockclimbing.com, Dropzone.com, Basejumper.com...etc...etc), they call me into HR and mention that they are reorganizing the business unit.  Read : Laying off several members.

You never see stuff like this coming, but as they say change is good.  I'm super proud of what I accomplished at the Outdoor Channel, and now its time to hunt down my next opportunity in the outdoor market.

As many of you out there know, we all love the outdoors.  And we will all fight tooth and nail to make sure that we stay employed in the outdoor market.  It's who we are.  It is what we do when we are not working.  And above all, the majority of members in the outdoor space are the kinds of folks you want to work with, or head into the mountains with.  It's that simple.

Living on the East Coast ( Massachusettes) presents some challenges.  I'd say 80% of the jobs out there are best suited for those living in CO, UT or CA.  So to give you an idea of where I am hunting, I put together a list of "target" companies where I will be sending my resume.

So while I hunt down some consulting gigs in the shortshere I'd like to ask a favor from the outdoor community.  If anyone knows a contact in HR, Marketing or Sales from the following companies, or even knows of a current opening with one of them let me know!  Also, the list I have here is really just from some initial research.  I may be missing some key players, and if so let me know so I can add them to the list.

Here they are:

MASSACHUSETTES

66 North US Inc. , Newburyport MA
ADC FOOTWEAR, Reading MA
ADVENTURE OUTFITTERS , Hadley MA
Aline , Marblehead MA
Alps Sportswear , Lawrence MA
Avalanche Wear AV Sportswear , Lynn MA
Bemis , Shirley MA
Boston Vertical , Everett MA
Common Soles, Wellesley, MA
CITY SPORTS , Boston MA
Clarks , Newton Falls MA
Earth Inc , Waltham MA
Essential Gear, Greenfield MA
GoMotion Inc. , Wareham MA
Green Market Services Company, Brockton MA
IllumiNITE , Hudson MA
Karhu North America , Beverly MA
Marmaxx Group , Framingham MA
MICHELIN FOOTWEAR , Pembroke MA
New Balance Athletic Shoe, Boston MA
New England Rope, Fall River MA
Polartec LLC , Lawrence MA
Reebok International Ltd.  Canton, MA
Saucony Inc. , Lexington MA
Stride Rite, Lexington MA
Swix Sport USA Inc , Wilmington MA
The New England Surf Co, Beverly MA
Tweave LLC , Norton MA
Vibram USA , Concord MA

MAINE

32 North , Biddeford, ME
Acorn , Lewiston ME
Delorme, Yarmouth, ME
L.L. BEAN , Freeport ME
RSN Resort TV , Portland ME
Sterling Rope Co , Biddeford ME

NEW HAMPSHIRE

All Terrain , Sunapee NH
BAILEYWORKS , Portsmouth NH
BROOKSTONE , Merrimack NH
Eastern Mountain Sports , Peterborough NH
ECCO , Londonderry NH
Eco-Mills , Portsmouth NH
Golite Footwear , Portsmouth NH
I.C.E., Inc. , Kingston NH
Jetboil Inc. , Manchester NH
Life is Good , Hudson NH
MBT, Portsmouth, NH
Minus 33 Merino Wool Clothing , Ashland NH
NEMO Equipment Inc. , Nashua NH
New England Footwear, Portsmouth NH
Simply Birkenstock , New Hampton NH
The Timberland Company , Stratham NH
Trailtex LLC , Portsmouth NH
Xterra Footwear , North Hampton NH

"Page level transparency" & "Brand Safety"

What does this mean to you as the brand manager for an outdoor product?  Does it mean that your ad is on rice paper and the customer can see safely right through your pitch?  Not exactly, but to be serious the whole internet advertising game is moving at light speed, so let's hope you are as well.

Lucid Media is an interesting meta network.  Translation:  Place your outdoor brand ads on the net and Lucid will help you target customers based on activity type and page content.  It is like having a report from an outdoor magazine ahead of time, telling you where the best page would be to match your advertisement to your customer.

And let's not forget about brand safety.  All this means is that when you buy online media, you can be assured that your ad for a high tech tent will not appear next to an article on "5 best ways to keep your house clean while taking care of a newborn"

These meta networks are new news.  Not even a year ago, to place media on the net, you first had to find the reach, then get a handle on what sites to choose that best match your target demographics.  This was by far a manual process.  Tons of different insertion orders and different media specs.  At some point during your campaign, reports would be sent to you showing which ads performed best on which site.  This all occurred after the fact.  You could optimize the placement going forward, but those first few weeks were more of a test than anything else.

So Lucid is here to the rescue. Or not.  What they bring to the table is a very robust taxonomy of websites, broken down by activity.  So while you may be used to targeting outdoor males, Lucid will help you target those males who are more into climbing and less into say disk golf.  Here, let me show you:

Lucid has tons of channels.  For us, we're most interested in "Sports and Recreation"  For those of you with an agency, this is what the media planners are doing in order to prepare your campaign.  They are finding websites with the demographics you need and then negotiating the media spend at the site level.

But here is my problem with this.  Actually, I have several issues.  Look at the categories above.  There are 21 sub categories for this channel (and hundreds of sub sub categories).  So Lucid is making the assumption that you know the relative value of pitching your campaign to a group of golf lovers over a group of camping junkies.  Seriously.  Who knows this?  Maybe you've had a long term license with Leisure Trends and know a little bit more about the types of activites your customers love to do when not using your product, but for many of the smaller outdoor brands the cost of this data is too high.

That is where an experienced digital marketer can help out ( hint hint).  I've built and managed hundreds of outdoor media campaigns, and I know much more about the inner workings of targeted media, and how it either matches up or bucks the trend when it comes to baseline comScore stats.  Sometimes what may seem obvious on the surface isn't so obvious in the details.

For instance, I recently had an outdoor brand come to me with a line of travel hammocks.  They knew little about what their activities their customers liked to do, but they were sure it was light travel.  The campaign was set up to run across several websites, but I knew ahead of time that outdoor fishermen and skydivers would do better than say campers.  This came down to lifestyle patterns and income levels. I also helped them match up the media spend based on focused DMA markets as opposed to a national sweep. 

But still, I think the Lucid solution is a step in the right direction.  At least you can target your customer at a high level contextual match and then refine moving forward.  The guess work about CTR and ROI results has been slightly reduced ahead of time.  The brand safety is nice as well.  But this would need to me monitored, in real time, in order to assure your ad dollars were being used to their best potential.

If anyone would like more info on this, drop me a line and I'd love to walk you through it.

I get a lot of newsletters throughout the day regarding media plans, targeting and the latest and greatest.  One came over yesterday that really hit the nail on the head regarding the role of the "enthusiast" and the general online community.

The outdoor space is a little different.  There are general brands who brand online, and for them finding a deep pocket of "enthusiasts" can be tough ( when have you seen a micro-site devoted to Dove Soap?).  Outdoor folks are different, and its interesting to me how this author points out some thoughts that we've known all along.

I'll put a link to the article at the end, but in a nutshell : In order to brand online, you need to be inside the commnuities who are using your brand, and then reach the ones who are going to tell as many people as possible about how cool they think your product is.

Top Ideas from the Article:

1. The 1% Rule
2. The 2-4X Rule
3. The New Media/New Pipes Rule
4. The Martha Stewart Rule
5. The Power of "Weak Links" Rule
6. The Feed the Fire Rule
7. The More Things Change Rule
8. Horse Before the Cart Rule
9. The PR Pitfalls Rule
10. The Customer-Service Rule

10 Essential Rules for Brands in Social Media

Must be that time of season?  Lots of new brands showing up, and one trend that I've always been a huge fan of is geo-targeting.  In case you are out of the loop on this one, basically we are able to serve online ads by country, by state, area code....you name it.

So when a large outdoor brand approached with a new watch they wanted to promote, their savvy marketing team wanted to showcase the item based in states that had the highest percentage of the "elite" and "super active" outdoor enthusiasts.

Put another way, they didn't want their ad showing up to folks in areas that weren't using the web for outdoor product research.  A focused media buy. Nice!

The map above shows a real time image of where your customers are currently living.  You can assume that based on the seasons this changes over time, but as it stands CA ranks #1 right now.  Here is a small portion of the list:

California 17% New York 6% Colorado 6% Texas 5% Pennsylvania 4% Washington 4% Massachusetts 3% North Carolina 3% Arizona 3% Virginia 3% Oregon 3% Illinois 3% Utah 3% Ohio 2% Florida 2% Georgia 2% Maryland 2% New Jersey 2% Tennessee 2% Michigan 2% Minnesota 1% Missouri 1% Nevada 1% Arkansas 1% Alabama 1%

Wow.  The whole social marketing scene moves pretty fast doesn't it?  Quick post here on an excellent slideshow I came across from Shiv Singh ( Razorfish SM guru).

You know how last year a lot of your time was spent on finding "key" alpha outdoor consumers?  Guess what, there is more to this than you may know.  Enter social influencers....which by the way you find in a large part on public forums.

Where do you find those?  Here.  The outdoor channel.  Namemedia has these members and they weigh in on over 30,000 new conversations in forums each day on our sites. Now that you can find them, read on to learn how to calculate your SIM.

Interesting trend that is happening over here in my vertical.  Last year, I spent the majority of my time building a base line of data, reaching out to endemic advertisers and doing anything I could to "attract" the larger more national advertisers to our outdoor audience. 

In that order, you go from a pat on the back to bringing home the bacon.  And to really nail it on the head, you have to have budget and data.  Like comScore data.  Super expensive and reserved for only the elite of outdoor brands.

Not so fast.  We own all of our sites and we have the data as well.  So in case you are curious as to what makes the "extreme sports outdoor enthusiast" tick, comScore has over 5,300 data points that they measure on this audience.  Its exhausting looking through it all ( this is why media planners quit after like a year on the job).

But indeed, as you know I'm a geek.  And I like data.  So I sorted the entire list and captured the top 10 things that is the Raison d'être for for Outdoor Enthusiasts.  Take a look at the list and see where you fit in. 

Just so you know what you are reading above.  With the sample size that comScore acquired from "outdoor" and "extreme sports" sites, the members most often cited the above as things they've done.  Thus in the industry we call this their lift index.  Some of this stuff is a no brainer, but anytime data can back up a hunch you are on to something.

Check it out:

#1 favorite thing for outdoor folks to do?  Shop online.  They crank in a 13.1x more affinity for spending money online.  Their #1 item is not gear, its software and electronics.

They are buying dog food like its going out of style.  Seriously.  A huge chunk of their budget goes for Spot and his four pals in the garage.

Skin cancer is on the rise, they are concerned about it and some are already on meds for it.

Our groups hits concerts like its their job.  Makes sense.  Let's hear it for Dave Matthews right?

Lots and lots of folks in the outdoor space are saving for weddings.  Wow.  How much?  $10K - $20K.  For who?  Not the outdoor dude or dudette, but for someone else in their family  Too funny.

When we go on International Business trips, its Swiss Air all the way.  Hmmm...funny how there is decent skiing over there as well.

Lots of nail fungus.  I'll stop there.

We love our drinks, and we love seeking counseling for it.

And then on an odd note, lots of issues with Alzheimer's Disease.  Not to sure about this one.

We're all trying to get to the same place right?  More sales, more visitors, more branding.  Yet why does it seem like we're all taking different trails down the mountain?

I've brought up this point a couple of times, but when it comes to marketing to outdoor enthusiasts you have to be on point, on time and certainly on your best behavior.  And this is where I think we see the divergence in the pack of advertisers as to why they all come at this a different way.  Not everyone is doing all of the above, but some are doing one or close to all.

Instead of trying new routes, maybe a point from our social media guru at Ogilvy can shed some light on this:

The More Better Mandate

January 05, 2010 
by Kelly Stephenson, New York 


2. More Better Introducing the More Better Mandate – not a grammatical sin but a business imperative. I thank Joel Makower for summing it up so clearly on his Two Steps Forward blog: “The bar keeps rising [for businesses]: What seemed cutting-edge 10 years ago — carbon neutral products and companies, zero-waste factories, green chemistry, life-cycle analysis, green buildings — is now mainstream, or at least warrants a so-what? response when trumpeted by companies. Things that used to make headlines — or, at least, good promotional copy — are now business as usual.”

Which means it’s time for brands to start thinking of sustainable credentials as customer-expected instead of value-added. The logical next step: figure out what’s the next value-add. Time Magazine reported that 40% of Americans purchased a product in 2009 because of the social or political values of the company that produced it. And we expect this number to grow. So, while you may have launched a mostly-green product in 2009 as a one-off nod to sustainability within an otherwise “normal” portfolio of goods, this year you probably need to make that product – and its entire supply chain – 100% green. But don’t stop there. Back up the effort with a commitment to make the rest of your portfolio greener, too… not to mention the chairman of the board’s POV and the CEO’s voting record.  More better.