Ryan Watson (00:00):

If you're working with an agency that is not doing that,fire them because it's true that the technology these days enables you to atleast get strong, if not perfect signal. Brand marketing for the purpose ofjust brand mass exposure is essentially dead because of all of the measurementabilities that we have. Now, my big thing for marketers today is measureeverything and try to tie it to an actual business, KPI that is meaningful.

Cole Heilborn (00:34):

On this podcast, we go behind the scenes with industryexperts as they break down what it takes to produce creative work that works.If you're seeking insights from some of the sharpest minds of the industry,this is your guidebook to producing creative work that actually delivers.Welcome to the Background Dream Marketing podcast. Today I'm sitting down withRyan Watson. He is the CMO and COO at Mountain Tough Labs. Ryan, welcome to theshow.

Ryan Watson (00:57):

Dude, glad to be here.

Cole Heilborn (00:58):

Yeah, thanks for joining. Alex connected us. Alex was onthe show, gosh, like a month ago and had an awesome episode all about productmarketing and value proposition and had some harsh words for the outdoorindustry, and so I don't want to say you set the bar high, but you've comehighly recommended.

Ryan Watson (01:17):

Good deal. Yeah, I love Alex. We had a good run over at OnXMaps together. He's a good dude.

Cole Heilborn (01:22):

Yeah, yeah, he knows his stuff for sure. We're going totalk about a few different things we're going to talk about, well, kind of youropening statement when we connected on our intro call was this idea that brandmarketing for the sake of impressions is if you're chasing that today, youshould probably reconsider what you're putting your effort and energy and moneyinto. So we're going to be talking about that. We're also going to be talkingabout community building as kind of a subset of brand marketing and the powerof community, and they're also going to talk about performance marketing andbrand marketing and some nuance between those two and how they can worktogether. So Ryan, give us a little background on yourself. Mountain Tough, andcan you give us an opening statement on why you think brand marketing for thesake of impressions is dead?

Ryan Watson (02:07):

Yeah, yeah. So you already said it. CMO and COO ofMountain Tough Fitness Labs. We are a fitness app that is specifically gearedtowards the backcountry hunter, military law enforcement, first responders.It's a highly functional, functional fitness style that's very unique. That wasborn out of the mountains of Bozeman, Montana by our founder, and that's beenan incredible ride. That thing, we're growing it like crazy right now and it's,it's been really, really fun. It's a fairly unique brand to work on, very nicheand very difficult to sell because it's very difficult fitness and it's notbased around vanity, which a lot of fitness is based on looking better or thisone is mission specific training. Your body will change, you will look betterif you do mountain tough for sure, but it's not like the actual focus, whichmakes it actually quite difficult to sell sometimes if you're not playing intothe psychological reasoning for people to want to go lift weights.

(03:18):

So before then, I was at OnX Maps as the growth directorfor the company. I started there as an early digital marketing specialist andjust worked my way up into leading teams and had some incredible teammates. Allthe credit goes to the team. They were just a stacked group of highlymotivated, very intelligent people, and we did some amazing things at OnX. So Ihave a lot of incredible experience to draw from there. Very lucky to work withthe people I did at that company. And then before then, I just went to collegehere in the University of Montana, grew up in Missoula, local town, local kids,still here. So that's my background.

(04:02):

The statement I guess was that kind of trying to toy witha hot take here is that brand marketing for the purpose of just brand massexposure or just buying impressions is essentially dead because of all of themeasurement abilities that we have now. Prime example is people used to buy TVads and then the measurability, which I would've called probably directional atbest, was surveys that were sent out by Nielsen and looking for lift or foottraffic increases, but you really didn't know the actual effect. It was a lotof smoke and mirrors just due to technological limitations. So my big thing formarketers today is measure everything and try to tie it to an actual business,KPI, that is meaningful. And if you're working with an agency that is not doingthat, fire them. So because it's true that the technology these days enablesyou to at least get strong if not perfect signal.

Cole Heilborn (05:19):

Okay. Yeah. Way to set the stage here for a goodconversation. So walk us back, kind of explain brand marketing for the sake ofimpressions. What does that look like? Provide a little context. What do youmean by that? What does that actually look like historically in the outdoorindustry? And then let's go from there.

Ryan Watson (05:38):

I think that hopefully when I'm not dogging on brandmarketers, because I think it's just a mentality shift and also an acceptanceof technology. So a lot of times you would get a lot of pushback, for example,on a creative team might deliver something and it's just the thing that you'regiven and then you execute that campaign with that asset. It's one bigmarketing campaign around one thing, one message where now you're able to testmany, many messages all throughout, optimize your ad campaigns, optimize yourad campaigns, your creative, your messaging throughout the life of a campaign.It could change drastically based on performance. So sort of the days of justcreating this big giant brand around one key message, one tagline, onecommercial I guess you could call it. I think that's kind of over, at leastit's over for very intentional marketing. I definitely think that big giantbrands like Coca-Cola could probably still get away with this, with just theamount of money that they're spending and the lack of the need for directconversions.

(06:59):

But I think in the outdoor industry, you really got to be,it's hard. The outdoor industry is niche, it's finite, and you just cannot getaway with poor shotgun style marketing. I think you have to be way moreintentional, way more measured, and you still have to take risks obviously, butyou can approach spending marketing dollars very carefully these days and youcan pull the plug on things that aren't working very quickly and iterate veryquickly nowadays. And I think that that sort of mentality shift is more whatI'm talking about versus just buying impressions is dead. Because I do thinkthat you could just buy impressions in certain ways and because you want toincrease foot traffic, so you're going to buy some billboards in a town that'sbasically buying impressions, and as long as that's a part of some sort ofmeasured lift or very intentional placement proximity to stores, I think thatthat stuff can kind of work. It's more just that don't take anything forgranted, don't spend money without trying to account every dollar that youspend towards the conversion.

Cole Heilborn (08:11):

Do you feel like though brands before recently was, Iguess, how do you define brand marketing? Let's start there.

Ryan Watson (08:20):

I think brand marketing would be, I mean, I think this issomewhat subjective because a lot of times you would see businesses splitperformance marketing teams and then a brand marketing team where the brandmarketing team might be developing a storyline, a feature film, doing things. Iguess maybe brand marketing is doing things for the sake of doing them becausemaybe it's the right idea potentially. And performance marketing is doingthings that you measure and keep doing if they work. It's like marketing yourcompany broadly versus specifically, I guess is probably how I would define it.

Cole Heilborn (09:07):

Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, so I've always interpretedbrand marketing as this is who we are, this is our values, this is our storyand we're going to share it. But what you're saying is that I know that stuffis important, I know that that's important, but you're saying don't do justthat stuff without coupling it to specific problems or specific KPIs, I guesswhen was the industry just focusing on brand and impressions without trying tosolve a specific problem or without having a specific KPI that they were tryingto see results on? Was there ever a time where that was happening?

Ryan Watson (09:51):

Yes, and I would say it's when you could not measure it.So it was sort of before the direct response age, and that just TV has slowlydied over time. Now, when I say tv, I'm talking about non-connected tv. Weshould maybe talk about connected tv. Now. That's a completely different gamenow. It might have better measurement than your phone for performance marketingnowadays, just because of the technology behind it and the lack of privacysettings on connected TVs. So it's kind of like that. It was an old agencymentality shift where you'd spend a lot of money developing the creativeupfront and then just launching it everywhere because the delivery mechanismwas not able to be iterated quickly upon. But now you have Instagram andFacebook where literally you can see on a day when one ad is doing better thanthe other and turn the bad one off. So it's because of these direct responsetechnologies and meta being incentivized for businesses to do well to make moremoney, the attribution becomes way more important because if they can growtheir subset of businesses, then they're going to spend more money. It's aperfect cycle, right?

Cole Heilborn (11:15):

Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. So then when is brand marketing in itshistorical definition, is there ever a time and a place for it?

Ryan Watson (11:26):

I don't think so anymore. So the way that I would saybrand marketing needs to shift now is to our point is more especially for theoutdoor industry, is community building and sort of still linked to the valueof the product. And it's almost like what Alex was saying was almost like brandmarketing and product marketing almost need to completely align so that you'restill delivering a specific value proposition message as a part of your brandbecause you're competing with so many things right now. People are very gluedto their phones, but you have everybody's scrolling and if you're advertisingthere, which is where most people's eyeballs are, is the most intently now youdon't have a lot of time to tell a longer narrative story. It's almost like youhave to hook them first with your product value proposition, get them into theproduct, and then foster loyalty after the fact. So that's why I say brandmarketing is more like community building, but you've got to hook 'em first andhooking them first. I think it's less efficient to be moral narrative at thefront now than being more value proposition based up at the front now, if thatmakes sense. So it's almost like reframing the brand marking storytelling todown funnel.

Cole Heilborn (12:48):

Interesting. Got it. So we're basically flipping thefunnel on its own pretty

Ryan Watson (12:52):

Much. Yep. Yeah, you got to hook 'em first. And I thinkthat people can be very inspired by stories. I think Yeti is probably a counterto this example, but you got to realize how much money they had and how muchmoney they were able to invest in that. If we're talking smaller shops, if youblow all your money

Cole Heilborn (13:14):

Up, well, but if you talk to them and you learn about thestrategy behind what they were doing, you also realize that they had a veryspecific strategy with that content in those films. They weren't just producing'em because they were cool, they were trying to build relationships withincommunities that they weren't yet integrated with, which is an excellentchallenge and KPI to be trying to solve for,

Ryan Watson (13:39):

It's also very expensive. So what I'm saying is it may notbe, I wouldn't advise many brands to spend as much money as Yeti did on a filmas their top of funnel strategy because you're competing with Mr. Beast onYouTube and good luck getting that feature film out there unless you've alreadybuilt that sort of following and you have the money to invest in it. It justdepends on the company. A lot of times all of these points are nuanced, and Ido think that Yeti was a first mover on this advantage for sure. I think theydefinitely didn't have as much competition in the brand space doing that typeof strategy either.

Cole Heilborn (14:19):

So come back to this idea of the hook. I'm scrolling, I'mscrolling, and all of a sudden I come across something and you're betting thatthe hook should be tied more to the value proposition of the product or theservice rather than the brand's narrative and a sexy story.

Ryan Watson (14:37):

Yeah, I mean the average watch time is three seconds onreels, on ads, and I think this varies for everybody, but you can watch it ad agood average ad is probably five seconds plus of view time if you're looking atall of the views that you're getting because then a subset of those views aregoing to watch for longer than that five seconds, and a subset of those willclick and a subset of those clicks will purchase. And so the hook is I think ismore efficient when you're trying to solve the user's problem in a really cool,unique way. Now that sort of creativity is really important. That brandmarketing creativity is really important to bring to the front of that funnelbecause it is basically the fastest elevator pitch now in the world. And thatthree second window that, and honestly, I've read Facebook's documentation,they're saying you have to hook them in the first two seconds and you watchreally pay attention to who's doing this really well, are those accounts thatare taking podcast clips and doctoring it with the way that the text captionswhat color they are, what's holding your attention?

(15:53):

Are they yellow, are they green, are they red? They'reprobably testing all of these things. And then what is the person saying? Whendo you start that reel so that the user gets the context very quickly thatmakes them want to watch the rest of the reel?

(16:08):

I've done ads where it's literally from a podcastconversation where you're like, oh, this is perfect. This is a quick to valueconversation. And it's interesting, it's intriguing right now, podcast ads frompodcasts definitely one tactic for sure, but when you're building out yourproduct marketing campaigns, aligning them with your performance marketingcampaign, you have to have that sort of quick, fast value. Why do I care? Whyam I going to keep watching this thing? Because that algorithm knows what youlike and it probably is putting something in front of you that you're going to,because getting really good at that, right? They're getting really good attuning people's algorithm. If you see an ad, you're most likely interested inthat thing,

Cole Heilborn (16:57):

Not if you're on my Facebook, it's all trash.

Ryan Watson (17:01):

Yeah, I guess maybe it depends.

Cole Heilborn (17:04):

So you're making me think about this concept. So I feellike the reason why the hook, if your hook in an ad is the value proposition ofyour product, I can see why that makes sense. It's because people are selfishand people are, they're looking for something for themselves. And if you showup and you're like, Hey, I can help you get in shape for a sheep hunt that'supcoming, like, oh, boom, I'm interested because I'm a sheep hunter and now Iwant to figure out how to carry around a hundred pounds on my back and go on ahunt. You're solving a need for me to compare that to a brand marketingnarrative that maybe is being put out almost inherently. It's a story that'slike, it opens on some Misty Mountain shot and there's guys hiking up a ridgeline and you're telling a story about the company. The company is telling youabout who they are, they're interjecting their story into your life. And Ithink maybe that's why what you're seeing, that value proposition component isa stronger hook than a brand narrative. So a second thought to that though iswhat if you could craft a narrative that is so freaking compelling that you tapinto that selfish need of the human? I think there's a way to do that and stillhave that brand narrative be that strong hook.

(18:29):

It just maybe it takes more work. They can

Ryan Watson (18:30):

Together. Yeah, they can definitely work together. And itdepends on the company for sure. So I guess for an example, for Mountain Tough,it just depends on what you want to lead with. I think because so much focusneeds to be on getting them engaged to watch that longer. Like I said, thecreative aspect of getting people to stay engaged is there, but you're not justbanking on one thing nowadays. You could create five or 20 and test all ofthem, and then when the one that works the best, you could push forward andjust use that narrative. So I think again, it's more of a cultural shift to notjust a one and done launch of something. And it's an iterative approach tothings not being married to certain messaging or styles and really trulytesting them out and giving them enough breadth, enough money behind them totruly get good data.

Cole Heilborn (19:28):

Do you feel like it makes a difference what sort ofproduct the company is selling if we're to really simplify, you've got veryniche high ticket items versus Coca-Cola where they're selling to everyonerather than a very specific audience. Do you think that makes a difference inwhether you start with a brand narrative versus a value proposition of theproduct?

Ryan Watson (19:48):

Yeah, I really do think it does. A lot of those historicbrands have so much brand equity that they can just ride on it out into thefuture. Coca-Cola for sure is one of them. They're just so recognizable andwhat all they're trying to do is create the purchase in the store or build, Iguess, and I say that about Coca-Cola specifically, but they purchased VitaminWater. Their placement for Vitamin Water was all over TV shows and peopledrinking it, but again, they're still resting on the laurels of a giganticbrand and money to almost force function this brand awareness to performance.But in the outdoor industry, a lot of these smaller branches do not have thatluxury, and you have to just be so much more intentional. But we'll see whathappens. I think a lot of these big companies will buy up these once a brand isstarting to figure it out, unless they go public, they get purchased. And sothat brand that maybe has that historical brand equity can keep their profitsgoing through acquisitions just like Vitamin Water. As a good example of that.

Cole Heilborn (21:05):

It's hard to argue that Coca-Cola has much of a valueproposition to their customer.

Ryan Watson (21:10):

I mean, besides just tasting good and now with all of thishealth based things, I would argue yes, they definitely do not. Yeah.

Cole Heilborn (21:21):

How do you feel about, I'm not going to name names, butwhen a larger outdoor brand launches some big brand campaign, how do you feelabout those? Do you feel like there's a time and a place? Do you feel likethey're useful?

Ryan Watson (21:38):

No, I don't. I think that they could make more sellthrough by really strong performance marketing and spend all of those dollarson performance marketing and do a lot better, especially if they have a strongdirect to consumer channel. I know they need to support stores and build foottraffic, but I think you can do both. A good example was Airbnb really made abig shift away from performance marketing and booking.com was like, oh, sweet,here's our opportunity. While Airbnb was focused on brand storytelling and PRwas really big for them, booking.com just crushed performance marketing. Youcan see it in their 10 K. They are doing incredibly well where Airbnb a lotless did not have that kind of growth.

(22:32):

And so I think it's, man, maybe this is controversial, buta brand campaign when pitched to executives is this big beautiful storyline,this deck, this like, oh my gosh, we're going to change lives with this messageof dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it may be as easier to pitch than like, okay,we're going to test these five different concepts over this period of time.We're going to look for statistical analysis on the best messaging, and thenwe're going to push this ad out into specific channels and measure thosechannels and keep iterating as we go. I personally think that's way cooler justas a data nerd, but a lot of brand marketing agencies and internal creativeteams just do not operate in that same way sometimes. And I think that just,again, it comes back to a mentality shift almost like a performance brand.Marketing can be performance marketing. I think it really all should beperformance marketing. You should be all iterative in testing and using thebest creative that you can. For example, why do we think that Coinbase didthat? Just floating little box? Do you guys think that was really just a bet?No, they tested that on other ads before then, so that was really effective.

(24:00):

And then they were like, let's use this at the Super Bowl.And so that was a great example of just something that was tested and thendone. Yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Cole Heilborn (24:10):

My beef with the whole brand campaign thing is, and Iguess it's my beef with all of marketing, is it comes back to the, we weretalking about this on our intro call permission marketing.

Ryan Watson (24:22):

Yes.

Cole Heilborn (24:23):

Do you have permission as the brand to show up in thisperson's life? And I feel like most, whether it's performance or brand orwhatever it is, most companies, if they're going to interrupt my world and mylife, they're not doing it in a way that the cost of the interruption isoutweighed by the value of whatever I'm seeing or watching or engaging with.And I feel like that's my beef with big brand campaigns is because if you'regoing to do them, make it worthwhile for the audience, you got to give them somethingto outweigh the cost of the interruption and distraction.

Ryan Watson (25:04):

What I've thought is actually a pretty amazing thing tobring back into this world is comedy.

Cole Heilborn (25:11):

Oh yeah,

Ryan Watson (25:12):

For sure is like comedy is value to the user. It creates alaughter where you're like, this Misty Mountain, this boot is the most powerfulthing you've ever put on your foot. It will climb Everest. But it's almost likethat's in that permissions based marketing thing. That story is maybe cool andmaybe you can hook the user with that value proposition for sure, but thatlonger narrative is harder to hold the attention. But dude, comedy crushes atthat absolutely crushes at that. Mountain Tough did this ad called Deeper Intothe Bush, and it was basically like an innuendos. We basically looked at an oldDodge commercial as a Super Bowl commercial, and I think that's where thecomedy just absolutely wins with a lot of these things for memory, memoryrecall. And we did this thing where there's two guys in a stall talking aboutMountain Tough, and it was totally misunderstood by the guy in the stall nextto them, and it was just all a bunch of innuendos.

(26:17):

And dude, that ad did so well, but where it did the bestretargeting because it was a little bit of a longer format, so upfront itdidn't do as good, but if people were slightly familiar with the brand and Ipushed it into their retargeting audiences, so people had been to our website,people would download our app and canceled the subscription or whatever,absolutely crushed because people were like, I'm buying just because of thisad. So again, flipping that funnel upside down, I do think that those stories,narratives, and comedy are oftentimes better suited in mid funnel.

Cole Heilborn (26:55):

Yeah, one that comes to mind. Do you follow Tracksmith atall?

Ryan Watson (26:59):

No. I

Cole Heilborn (26:59):

Running brand Masi, Massimo Al, he was on our show, Idunno, a year or so ago. He works there and he was telling us about this onead, this campaign that they produced. And their whole brand is aboutchampioning the amateur runner. You don't have to be a pro, but if you love thesport, then Tracksmith is for you. That's kind of their customer. And they cameup with this whole campaign called The Year of the Amateur and Amateur in Latinmeans love. It means for the love of whatever you're doing. And I feel likethat campaign, this campaign was one of those kind of altruistic great,beautiful running shots. It wasn't comedic in any way, but I feel like what itgave the audience was a new perspective on who they were as a person. And like,oh, I'm an amateur runner. Amateur doesn't mean bad or amateur doesn't meanbeginner. It actually has this other meaning. And I can relate to that, I canconnect to that. And I feel like that's an example where I was like, oh, theygave the audience something

Ryan Watson (28:06):

But

Cole Heilborn (28:06):

The audience never even knew existed.

Ryan Watson (28:10):

That creativity can still win. I think the creativity canstill win in this day and age, even if it is, even though I'm talking aboutfairly robotic approaches to driving conversions for your company. I do thinkthat the creative approaches can win. It just depends on the brand too. For usat OnX, all I had to do this is it. I had to get in front of a hunter and showthem a picture of a map that didn't have any property lines and a picture of amap that did have property lines. It's an easy problem and we sold the shit outof it. I mean, it was the best ad ever and it just crushed. But I can't do thatfor Mountain Tough. Mountain Tough is more akin to having to sell thatidentity. And yes, we are solving a problem, but I also need to keep you aroundbecause subscription businesses win on their retention. They don't just win ontheir first purchase. You're almost losing money almost always on asubscription business was first purchase, usually depending on the price point.And so that creativity is definitely required still.

Cole Heilborn (29:24):

Tell me more about the community building and I mean thiskind of gets into our next point, which is community building as a branddriver, as a brand lover.

Ryan Watson (29:33):

So community building is very difficult to not come acrossas cheesy, and it is still a lot of smoke and mirrors and a lot of intuitionhonestly. But coming down to a really good measure of success is prettyimportant. So I think the best example in the sort of fitness slash outdooradjacent space is probably GORUCK right now. And they built an amazing, so Iguess to just show who those guys are, they basically make functional fitnessequipment and they have a high focus on rucking, which is just weight in yourbackpack and walking either uphill or on flat ground doesn't matter. Andthere's tons of scientific benefits to rucking, especially for women. And theyjust started building ruck clubs all over the United States. And now there'sruck clubs in Japan, Europe, every country because they knew that Rucking wasrucking, could be very individualistic, but it's also really easy to do as agroup.

(30:43):

And so these ruck clubs have been a huge part of theirgrowth and ethos and building that community and building salesmen for yourproduct through really, really authentic people and sort of that, I don't evencall it, maybe it's gorilla marketing, it's just grassroots, real communityfocused, connection focused marketing, and they have a whole wing that fostersthat community. And so learning from that mountain tough being more less of aphysical good product and more of a digital good. A lot of mountain puffers areworking out alone in their basement gym because a lot of mountain puffers areactually rural and a lot of them just like to work out in their garage gym orbasement home gym. So we have a lot of home gym style workout programs that areactually the most popular in our app. It's like 70, 30%, 30% are working out ingyms, 70% are working out at home.

(31:46):

And even in the gym, people have their headphones on,they're focused on them, they're doing their thing. So can it be communityfocused? I think yes, because we started watching how people would interactwith each other on the app through the comments. We launched a Facebook group,tons of interaction, tons of like-minded people creating meetup groups. It'snot as a community like ground roots focused as goruck because Rucking is somuch easier to do with somebody else and a group of people. But we're reallyfocusing on building out areas for people to connect with each other. So now wehave a whole section of the app that's essentially a Discord server for ourusers. We foster a large Facebook community group. We engage with them, we'redirectly engaging with them, with our coaches, they're answering questions,they're really fostering the community engagement through our coaches beingsort of the subject matter experts around fitness, nutrition, whatever.

(32:45):

And that's been really successful. And we see a lot ofpeople who, if they're engaged in the community, they do retain better. Andthis is pretty common across a lot of different technologies. If people areengaged in the community, they're going to be more retained. And then thesecond phase to that was in-person events. Now we can't scale these as much,but they sort of draw almost like an example of the ethos, an example of whothe people are. So we can highlight our customers and show people in the app allof these vlogs about our events and show the faces and the people and thecomradery. And so people really feel a part of that and that strengthens thatidentity.

Cole Heilborn (33:30):

Yeah, interesting. Would you say that community buildingis the next iteration of brand

Ryan Watson (33:39):

Marketing? I think so. And I think since where a lot ofbrand marketing should focus because that creativity that almost is untestablein a lot of ways. I mean, obviously you can do things, experiment and launch ifit's good, but that sort of intuition that a lot of brand marketers have, Ithink could do really well in community activation events. Making thatconnection with people.

Cole Heilborn (34:04):

I mean, it makes sense because brand marketing, one of theways you can define it is just like it's that human condition. It's talking topeople as people with emotion and being intentional and the community buildingis just the in-person version of that.

Ryan Watson (34:24):

Yeah, it's hard to scale too. Luckily mountain tough, wecan scale it with sort of technology, but I think a brand that did it really,really well with Stone Glacier. And it's funny now because the president of ourorg now was the director of marketing at Stone Glacier, and I would say he'smore on the creative minded side. He is a really good illustrator, veryeffective creative mind, but he really, Lyle Hebel is his name. He'd be a goodguest to talk to at some point for you, but he really understood a few things.What did he say? He's like, dude, you own your hometown and you do communityevents in your hometown and you can just vlog about it and show people yourpeople and show your employees and show the human side of the brand. And thepeople really like that. And if done well, it can create almost like acult-like following for that brand.

(35:27):

He would always say, there's two things you want to do.You don't want to run out of beer and you don't want to run out and you want tohave cool people at your party. And so all of these, he would throw a summerbash at the HQ in Bozeman, they'd have like 600 people go to it and they'dthrow these events and then tons of content would be produced out of that, tonsof social content. People would post about it on their social media and thenpeople are like, oh man, this is a very cool brand. I would love to work there.And if you can create a brand that people, when they look at it just have thisstrong desire to get a job there, I think you're starting to win that communityfeel. Maybe

Cole Heilborn (36:07):

That's a great

Ryan Watson (36:07):

Signal. Yeah,

Cole Heilborn (36:10):

Fascinating. The whole community play is reallyinteresting because it seems like a really, I mean it seems difficult, but itseems so lucrative and I feel like it's lucrative because unfortunately peopletoday are so disconnected and we lack so much community that we're desperate tofind it anywhere. I was just having this conversation with a buddy of mine whoruns a mobile sauna and he's like, dude, I don't know what happens in thesauna, but strangers get to know each other. And there's real community thathappens when you're sitting in 140 degrees for 40 minutes. And we were talkingabout this idea, it was like people, the traditional forms of community,especially in this country, are gone it seems like. And I mean that's anopportunity as a brand I agree, is to fulfill that role.

Ryan Watson (37:04):

Even when you're looking at social media now, it's reallyhard to tell what's AI and what's not. So it's like, are you even looking atpeople anymore? I mean, it's going to be difficult to tell here soon and italready is. And so I really do think that figuring out a way to do it that hasimpact and scale could be huge. I mean, man, I feel like there was a lot ofthings like pint nights, pint night ideas, and going to a town and being like,guys, we're going to be in this town. We're just going to have a pint night.And maybe you buy three rounds for everybody in the bar and it's at most acouple thousand dollars for that. And then your flights, and then maybehopefully every brand has a videographer, bring a videographer, showcase thatand build that desire and then kind of see where that goes. I think that thatwould be smart for a lot of brands to do

Cole Heilborn (38:00):

And the opportunity to interact with your customers andget feedback like, Hey, what can we improve on? What features do you want tosee? What features do you not use? What's a problem that you experience whileyou're out on a hunt that you would love to solve for? That's some greatcustomer feedback opportunities as well. Totally from the product marketing.Yep,

Ryan Watson (38:20):

Totally.

Cole Heilborn (38:22):

Tell me more about, so you guys have, you guys recentlywere at, gosh, what was the name of the event you were just at?

Ryan Watson (38:29):

We were at Sheep though, and we put on an event calledTough Sheep.

Cole Heilborn (38:33):

So tell us more about this and tell me more about how youguys then what it was like last year and the film that you produced. This issuch a great example of community building plus storytelling and all of theabove.

Ryan Watson (38:45):

Yeah, so the tough events at Mountain Tough came about oneof our employees, super good guy named Weston. He's like, look, we could giveaway a sheep hunt, which if people aren't familiar with hunting, sheep huntingis very rare. It's like 1% of hunters or sheep hunters. We said, okay, what ifwe could give away a $50,000 sheep hunt and make the odds of giving away thatsheep hunt the best odds in the world? So at sheep show and at otherconservation banquets and events, there'll be raffles to get sheep hunts, andthose are usually at least over a thousand plus, maybe even hundreds ofthousands of entries to get those, to get that tag right or win that hunt. Andthen not always do you just get the tag, you then have to pay for the guide feesometimes too, so it's not like an all-inclusive thing.

(39:41):

So we were going to give away an all-inclusive sheep huntto a winner of only 500 people. So we going to go to sheep show where there'sfour to 5,000 people, many, many sheep punters, many, many wealthy people whocan afford to sheep hunt, and we're going to give away a tag to somebody whowould never, ever have the opportunity to want to afford it or even have theopportunity because of the low odds. So we broadcast this out, Hey, we'regiving away a sheep hunt. All you have to do is complete the workout finish andthen your tag that is clocked by our competitive timing partner, that tag goesinto a bucket and then at the end of the event, we draw out the winner. So it'sthe best odds in the world to win one of these amazing life-changing hunts, andthe odds are the best in the world you'll never get.

(40:35):

So we're going to do this every year. So now this thing isselling out right away. This is the second year we did it. It was amazing. Soldout right away. And then you get to see these people just blood, sweat andtears as they're going through this really difficult mountain tough workout andthey are very difficult. It's not something this year I think we had our firsttwo people quit this year, and so it, it's doable for everybody. We had an84-year-old do it. It took him two hours to complete it, but he completed it.And so it's an amazing event. So what we did with that first year, highlysuccessful, we took all of that money that we got.

Cole Heilborn (41:16):

So there's an entry fee per person.

Ryan Watson (41:17):

There is an entry fee per person, and we take all of that.We cover the cost of the hunt, and then the rest of that money we donate to theWild Sheep Foundation. So the first year we donated $50,000 to Wild SheepFoundation. The next year we took on brand sponsors that sponsored the waves.So if you were in the first wave, you were sponsored by Sitka. The second wassponsored by goruck, on and on and on. So we were able to donate more like$75,000 to the Wild Sheep Foundation this year. And so for us, it's justMountain Tough is just trying not to lose money. I think we maybe have made alittle bit of money on it this year. We'll have to look at the month in reviewafter we close the month, but we're just trying not to lose money. All of thisis brand awareness.

(42:01):

And at the show we just unlocked so much like Buzz aroundthis event. So everybody at the show is talking about it, everybody postingabout it, it just boom creates this big awareness bubble on social andphysically in the show. And then what we did was we took the winner of lastyear and we actually sent our videographer out with him to shoot the sheep huntthat he went on. And so we use that as the storytelling mechanism to showcasesort of the dream that you could potentially go. And we made this film calledThe Gauntlet, and it was a brutal hunt up in the McKinsey Mountains is thefootage is beautiful. It's insane. It's so cool. You watch that film, you'relike, I want to do this so bad. I want to quit mountain tough and then do toughsheep so I can get this. Sometimes I'm like, oh man, can I just be fired thenrehired so I can try and win this hunt? Obviously the answer is no to that.

Cole Heilborn (43:01):

So if someone's listening, they're like, man, I want totry and start doing some community building. What are some questions that youwould suggest someone ask themselves to determine if they're the right fit ortheir company is the right fit or in the right stage to pursue some of thesecommunity building events?

Ryan Watson (43:21):

I think you have to ask yourself, why would somebody wantto hang out with us as the employee group first? Do we have a culture in ourbusiness now that people would want to be a part of? Is you fake that thepeople sniff it out real quick? Or you'll have drama as you try to do moresocial things that will bleed out and could cause tons of issues. So I thinkthat's the first question. Is the culture of the business something that peoplewould want to be a part of right away? If it's not, then that's almost adifferent question for the business and the leadership. That's more of a,there's some bigger problems if maybe that's not the case potentially, butdude, there's some businesses that are just like, I just come here, I do mywork and I do my job. But I think that companies would do well to improve theirculture to a point where it would be something worth a community marketingthing. Because really what community is, you're just bringing people along foryour ride and connecting with them with yourselves.

Cole Heilborn (44:27):

Am I wrong in my notes? I thought that you had said in ourintro call, the more competitive the market, the more there is a need forbrands to build community.

Ryan Watson (44:36):

Oh yeah.

Cole Heilborn (44:37):

Hundred percent. Did you say that?

Ryan Watson (44:38):

Yes.

Cole Heilborn (44:38):

Okay, tell me more.

Ryan Watson (44:40):

Well, there's a gap. Like you were saying, people arelooking for this thing, and if you are a competitive space and everybody'sdoing good performance marketing, because what is everybody telling you to dothese days on the internet? Do good at performance marketing and you can learnhow to do performance marketing from YouTube basically now. And there's a lotof good growth agencies out there. A lot of the things on what to do are thereand set in stone. A lot of these brands are doing them pretty well, but not alot of brands are doing the community thing well. So it's a blue ocean for thatwithin a red ocean. So simply put, it's just not many people are doing it well,and it's not easy. Like I said at the beginning of this call, it can becomereally corny and terrible and cringey, and you do not want to become known as acringey brand.

Cole Heilborn (45:37):

Last question, how do you prevent your brand from becominga cringey brand?

Ryan Watson (45:42):

I think that's honestly really being thoughtful. Yourbrand personality should be something that you're proud of, not surroundingyourself with yes, men in your office is probably a good sign to that. If youhave a gut feeling that something isn't going to land well or just it soundsreally funny to you, but it may not come across as good or it's tricky, man,coming across as cringey I think is probably the best way to go about it. And Ithink the highest dangerous for people to appear inauthentic. And so figuringout how to ask yourself the question is like, is this authentic? Would Iactually do this if I wasn't a part of this company? Would I want to be a partof this? And it's tricky, but I think the authenticity has to come forwardbecause people will spot it. And I think it could ultimately kill something ifsomebody is just super convicted and not open to feedback.

Cole Heilborn (46:45):

So if I had to try to summarize everything we talked abouttoday, it's don't chase brand impressions for the sake of impressions. Tie itto a specific KPI or challenge

Speaker 3 (46:55):

That

Cole Heilborn (46:55):

You're trying to solve. Give your audience something ofvalue, make them laugh, make them think about themselves differently. Give themsomething if you're going to interrupt them. And then what community building.Maybe that's the way the future of brand marketing.

Ryan Watson (47:14):

I think so. Yeah, I think for sure community will justbecause I don't think all brands will be able to do community marketing welland it's harder to scale. There could be a lot of failure in that side ofthings, but I think the brands that figure it out are definitely going to bethe winners.

Cole Heilborn (47:34):

Yeah, yeah. Well said. What do you want to leave folkswith as we sign off?

Ryan Watson (47:39):

I think I'll leave everybody with do hard things becausedoing hard things makes your life better, and we don't do enough hard things.Life is too comfortable right now, and humans, we're not meant to becomfortable. We're hunter gatherers, we're conquerors, we're explorers. Go signup for a marathon. Go sign up for a high rocks race, even if you're out ofshape, sign up for an event and get in shape for it and do it. Go to your firstColorado elk hunt. Go climb a mountain. I think we need to do that as a society.We've improved so much on our comfortability that we need to improve on oursuffering.

Cole Heilborn (48:22):

And maybe if I could add one more thing to that list, askyourself the hard questions when you're trying to market your company. Yeah,it's too easy these days. What can you do differently? What perspective do youneed to shake up? And maybe there's some stuff in here from Ryan's conversationthat he should pay attention to into Ryan. Thanks for the time, dude. This isMichael. Yeah, thanks for everything. Thanks for the thoughts. I'm excited.Actually, I'm really intrigued with this whole, these workouts and these sheephunts and what you guys are doing from the community angle because that'sreally cool. That's really cool. I feel like people should consider that andhow they can learn from what you guys are doing.

Ryan Watson (49:05):

Yeah, dude, I'll see you in Reno next year.

Cole Heilborn (49:08):

Let's go. Well, Ryan, thanks for the time. I hope you guyscontinue to crush it and hope you have a great rest of your day,

Ryan Watson (49:17):

Dude. Thank you.

Cole Heilborn (49:17):

Alright, see you. Thank you for listening to this episode.If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us areview on Apple. And remember, as you're working on that next piece ofcreative, the difference between creative that works and doesn't work oftencomes down to the hard questions that you ask while you're shaping it.

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