Cole Heilborn (00:00)
Welcome to the Relevance Project, where we test what happens when three brands decide to buck the trends of traditional marketing and invest in strong, value-led, consistent organic content over time. If you're curious to see what happens, join us for the next three months.

What happens when three brands decide to prioritize investing in organic, interesting, entertaining, or relevant content for their audience? What sort of impact would that have on their revenue? What sort of business would that have on their brand building? What sort of impact would that have on their audience growth? And how would that affect their reliance andor the efficiency of their paid media? Today I'm excited to announce that we have selected three brands.

And over the next three months, we're going to test and experiment with exactly that question. A month ago, I put out a call on the podcast looking for brands that were interested in testing the power of investing in organic content. And the response was overwhelming. We got 19 brands that ultimately reached out to us and expressed interest. And over the last few weeks, we have been going through the process of interviewing them and making our selections. We've selected three brands.

Nate and Greg from Kitworks out of Bend Oregon, which is a gear management company that is ultimately trying to invent an entirely new product category overlooked by the outdoor industry. We're working with Ram from Skygoat, a company that's developed its own microgrid pattern and is looking for ways to grow and build engagement on social. And we've also selected Mike from Loon'r, a fun, quirky, stylish boot inspired by Japanese ski culture. Over the next three months,

Portside is going to be working with these three brands to try and unlock the power of organic content. Along the way, we're going to be documenting the process here on the podcast. And here's what you can expect. After this announcement episode, we're going to be releasing five episodes released every two weeks documenting the work that we've been doing for each of these brands. At the end of those five weeks, we plan to release a mini documentary, five to seven minutes, that highlights the entire process.

And condenses the process from five hours down into about five minutes. So if you're interested in seeing what potential awaits for brands that decide to develop a point of view, turn that point of view into relevant content for their audience, and then see what happens, see what sort of business impact it has on their business, then this series is for you. Along the way,

In addition to these extra episodes, we're also gonna be going out and researching individuals who can help inform this work for us. We have a slate of guests lined up who are experts in crafting organic content in social media, in the research and the psychology behind why people buy, how distinctiveness and mental availability impact the customer's decisions to purchase. Personally, I'm so excited for this project because.

I feel like it's an opportunity for us here at Portside to grow. This feels like it's the culmination of our work as a production company and the work that we've been doing on the marketing side all melding into one, which is how do brands show up through content in 2026 in an attention-based economy. There's a lot of myths out there, I feel like, that brands still hold on to. And over this series, I hope to not just be able to prove that some of these theories that we have are right.

But I'm mostly excited to get into the weeds and to help these brands figure out how to grow by using organic media as the way to do so. So I invite you to follow along and see where this takes us. If along the way you're interested in working with Portside on this type of a service, reach out to us. I honestly expect that this becomes the majority of the type of work that we do down the road, assuming that these next three months go well. Follow along on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Also, if you're getting value from this show.

We'd really appreciate it if you leave us a review on Apple. Go find us on YouTube. The YouTube channel is Cole Heilborn. Subscribe, drop us a comment. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a review on Apple. And remember, as you're working on that next piece of creative, the difference between creative that works and doesn't work often comes down to the hard questions that you ask while you're shaping it.

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