The Opportunity

Many outdoor brands produce beautiful films about athletes and ambassadors. But too often, those projects are treated like one-off pieces of content instead of strategic, 360 campaigns.

What’s usually missing isn’t production quality, it’s the strategy behind the story, the distribution, the campaign infrastructure, and the systems needed to maximize the ROI of the production itself.

With the right planning, a single brand film can create meaningful entertainment, but also solves tactical content needs across marketing, sales, retail, and e-commerce:

• Awareness
• Community engagement
• Sales channel assets
• Organic & paid social content
• Retail content
• Email campaigns
• Ambassador activations
• PR opportunities
• Screening events
• Long-tail organic traffic

What We Do

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1. The Foundation

The success of branded entertainment starts long before production. It starts first by understanding what the business objectives are. In this phase, we help brands clarify their goals and build a creative brief for the project.

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2. Finding The Right Story for the Audience

In the next step, we help brands identify stories with the highest potential for emotional resonance, audience relevance, and long-term distribution value.

Deliverables include:

• Ambassador and athlete story sourcing
• Casting outreach and pre-interviews
• Competitor and category analysis
• “Why this story, why now?” analysis
• Identifying what makes your story ownable
• Ambassador and athlete story sourcing
• Casting outreach and pre-interviews
• Story vetting and selection criteria

The goal is to uncover stories that not only entertain, but strategically support the brand’s broader marketing objectives.

How do we know when we've found the "right" story?

We utilize a 40+ point checklist to evaluate the fit of story options.

3. Build The Rollout Strategy

Great films fail every day because there’s no distribution system behind them.

We help brands architect the rollout before production begins. Designing owned, earned, paid, and community-driven distribution strategies that maximize visibility, engagement, and longevity.

This includes:

• Organic YouTube strategy
• Social campaign planning
• Paid media support
• Ambassador activation
• PR opportunities
• Community screenings
• Nonprofit and retail partnerships
• Influencer and creator distribution
• Launch sequencing and rollout timelines

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4. Create A Full-Funnel Campaign

We design supporting content ecosystems that move audiences from awareness and relevance to consideration, engagement, and ultimately purchase.

This includes:

• Awareness content
• Social cutdowns
• Educational content
• Paid media assets
• E-commerce assets
• Retail content

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5. Atomize The Production

We help brands turn a single branded entertainment project into dozens, and often hundreds, of usable marketing assets across every channel.

This includes:

• Paid ads
• Social edits
• Vertical content
• Product videos
• YouTube cutdowns
• BTS content
• Podcast content
• Photography
• Retail assets
• Email creative
• E-commerce content
• Sales enablement assets

In many cases, this process alone can significantly offset the original production investment by solving tactical content needs across the organization and reducing future production costs.

6. Activate Communities

We help brands equip athletes, ambassadors, nonprofits, retailers, and aligned partners with the tools they need to organically distribute and amplify the story.

This can include:

• Screening toolkits
• Fundraising events
• Ambassador activation kits
• Retail partnerships
• Community premieres
• Social sharing templates
• Event assets
• Press kits
• QR and referral system

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Want to Explore the Future of 360 Campaigns?

Check out this conversation with Marc Bock, Gore-Tex's Creative Director, on the Backcountry Marketing Podcast.

FAQ

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Can you produce and direct the production in addition to the strategy?

Yes. However, working with us on the strategy + distribution of a film doesn't mean we can't work with filmmakers. If you have great storytellers in your network, we're happy to work with them to bring the content to life.

What's the difference between this service and a production company?

A production company is focused on telling the best story possible. This service sets the foundation and distribution for that story to find success in the market.

What types of entertainment projects do you support?

We primarily support short and long form documentary storytelling projects.

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