Cole Heilborn (00:00.354)
I feel like around it, outdoor and lifestyle brands today, I feel pretty confident in saying that almost all of them, not everyone, but some most of them are missing their potential when it comes to content. You know, I don't know if I'm just a dreamer or if I'm naive, but the vision that I see for content moving forward is a world where the creative work that brands create works.

The creative work that they produce creates fans. It creates distinction and amplifies distinction between them and their competitors. It plays in culture and it defines culture. Content, I believe, should touch the depths of humanity. That it should make us feel something. It should make us feel connected. It should make us feel sad. It should make us feel the mosaic of emotions that humans can...

express and can feel. At the end of the day, I believe that that good strategic emotional video content truly has the capability to build unshakable fans, to build an audience that will champion you as a brand that they will love on you as a brand and that they'll stand up for you as a brand. Now, content can't do this alone, right? It obviously takes a brand

and the foundation of a good brand in order to be able to support content like that. But even great brands today, I feel like, aren't utilizing video content as effectively and strategically and as emotionally as they could be. Most brands, and when I say brands, I mean the people who work there, are overwhelmed. And it's not because they're incompetent, it's not because they don't know what they're doing, it's not because they're unaware of what's possible.

I think just today everyone is so slammed. Everyone is so busy. And I think we've been fed this lie that if you spend time in strategy, you're wasting time that you could otherwise be put into producing content. And as we're all competing with volume, there's an assumption that if we stop and think, we're going to get behind in the volume game. And while I'm not suggesting that volume isn't important,

Cole Heilborn (02:19.512)
What I am trying to clarify is that I believe that strategy, taking the time to think about the project, taking the time to think about the next campaign and ask the hard questions, right? Evaluate the idea, stress test the idea before you press go. And that is the differentiator between brands that are currently producing creative that's working really well and everyone else who is just producing mediocre content. I think unfortunately a lot of brands are just following the same recipe.

They launch a product, they produce a product video, they hire the same camera crew who doesn't actually challenge any assumptions or ask the hard questions. And they go out and film it, they put it online and they hope that it works. Now all marketing requires a little bit of hope, but there are ways to hedge your bets. There are ways to de-risk the creative that you're producing. And I know if you're trying to decide, am I that brand? Here's some symptoms you might be experiencing.

You're producing content, but you don't actually know why you're producing it. You're not really even sure what problems video content can solve. You're talking to everyone, but it feels like you're connecting with no one. You're measuring clicks, views, and impressions, but not really understanding how is this moving the business forward? I know I need to record this data, but what is it actually doing for me? You're fighting for audience attention.

but can you really articulate why the audience should even care about what you're saying? Fear is dictating your creative decisions. And lastly, you can feel your brand starting to blend into the background noise of the internet. Now, if you're feeling that way, I don't think you're alone because I think if we're being honest and I think if you got 50 brand marketers and creative directors in the same room, they would all probably express a similar sentiment.

If I had to guess, your own content strategy feels a little fuzzy. Maybe if you back up far enough, there's some clarity, but as you zoom in, you begin to ask yourself, gosh, is this even working? Or are we showing up in the right way? Are we speaking to the right audience? Why does our audience even care what we have to say? How is our brand film different than the next brand film? How is our product video different than the next product video? A sense of too many channels, too big of an audience, not enough budget.

Cole Heilborn (04:44.81)
not enough resources, enough creative talent, actually plenty of creative talent, but not enough direction. I think most brands experience all of those things. And I think the difference between brands that succeed and brands that don't succeed when it comes to producing creative that works is the difference between those that actually take the time to do the strategy work, to ask the hard questions, to challenge internal thinking and to examine different ways forward, different routes forward.

Over the last 200 episodes, 200 plus episodes, you've heard me ask a lot of questions on this show. And I've always labeled Portside as a production company. And I want to take a little moment here to explain why that label doesn't fit us any longer. And to be fair, I don't think it's fit us for quite some time. I just didn't realize it. And I've talked about this in episodes past our evolution, why we're evolving, things like that. But we're evolving because we were asking questions that no one had answers to.

And eventually we realized, gosh, if no one's going to be able to answer these questions, maybe we should be the ones who are answering questions for brands. We realized that we were no longer just the order taker, but we were in fact helping build the order, craft the order, and then deliver on the order. You know, I think part of what makes our approach unique is that we've distilled the 200 episodes that we've hosted on this show into a database. We call it the backcountry marketing filter.

And the way we use this filter is to, it's the foundation to our strategy. I'll give you an example. So we are currently producing a brand film for a client of ours. They brought us in to help find a story in their community and then tell that story. This is a film that'll be 30 to 45, 60 minutes long. And as we've been researching and trying to find a good story to tell,

we realized this is an opportunity to put our database of insights to the test and approach this project, not just as filmmakers, but also as strategists. So here's what we did. We went through our database, pulled 50 insights that were critical elements for us to understand as we built the strategy around this film. Now, historically, if we were producing a film for a client, we might just show up and say, what's the story? Let's find a great story. Let's get out there and make it happen.

Cole Heilborn (07:08.982)
And while the story is obviously critical, right? That is kind of the heart of the strategy. There's so many other components that are necessary to producing a strategic brand film campaign. It's not just about the story. So we've sat down, identified 50 elements, and some of those elements are really basic things. They're things like, you know, taking time to ask the question, how does the story we're considering align with the goals of the brand for this project? Or,

How is this project slipping into white space on the internet? Are we telling a story that's been told 100 times or are we telling something that's truly unique? That's a simple question, but one that can significantly impact your distribution and your SEO, how you market the film, everything. We're looking at other things like who is our audience? Who's our existing audience? Who's a new audience perhaps we're trying to reach? How does the stories we're considering align with that particular audience?

You know, we're looking at elements of the story. Is this based on human truths? Are we avoiding stereotypes? How does the geographical location where we're telling this film align with business targets? So right now we're evaluating stories. We've got 10 or 15 different stories that we're considering. And right now we're evaluating them against this rubric of 50 different insights. This rubric is by no means a guarantee that this project will be a success, but it significantly de-risks the investment. It provides

discussion for us and the team to come together and rally around the strategy together. And if nothing else, it gives us a framework to work from. Portside evolved from a production company to a studio because frankly, we saw the writing on the wall. Bad creative is always blamed on the people who make the film, who make the piece of video. There's an unfair assumption that if you make the thing, you're responsible for its delivery.

Now, as a production company, could only influence, 25 to 40 % of a project's overall success because there's so many other pieces to the puzzle that we don't have control of. But as we would work with clients, we would ask questions. We'd try to understand the other 60 % of the equation that we didn't have access to to ensure that, one, that they were doing their job, and two, that it would set us all up for success. And we started to realize that the more we produced our own work, the more that we talked to people on our show,

Cole Heilborn (09:35.768)
the more that we learned, gosh, maybe we shouldn't be the ones asking the questions. Maybe we should be the ones helping brands answer those questions for themselves. Because we started to realize that a lot of brands didn't have the answers to the questions that we knew were critical to understand when it came to producing creative strategy. So if you get nothing else from this episode, I would leave you with one thing. Pause from your busy day and ask yourself, is our content

working as well as it could. And be critical of it. Tear it apart. Try not to look at it with rose-tinted glasses. And if not, consider doing one of these three things. Keep listening to this podcast because we're going to continue to break down what it takes to produce creative work that works. Secondly, ask for feedback. Find a colleague. Find a friend. Find someone unaffiliated with your brand and ask them that same question. Ask for perspective.

Sometimes you're too close to the problem to actually be able to see it for what it is. There's an expression a friend of mine has, you can't read the label of the bottle if you're inside the bottle. And third, if you need help, reach out to us. Every project we take on starts with an intake and we charge a flat fee for this intake. And it's designed to pressure test your idea. It's designed to bring us up to speed with where you're at, what you know, and more importantly, it allows us to expose what we don't know.

We take our insights from our backcountry marketing filter and we apply those directly to our intake, exposing the red flags, the pitfalls, and the things that you might not be considering as you're working on your next brand film, your next marketing campaign, your next product launch, your next athlete integration, et cetera. The intake ends with a report of our findings. We come to you and say, hey, this is what we found. This is what you should consider filling in the gaps. Here's how we might be able to help you moving forward.

And that's it. That's where the engagement stops. It ends with a satisfaction guarantee. And if you don't like what we provided, you can request your money back and we'll give it to you. No questions asked. Now, I feel like I'm selling this really hard, but it's because I believe in it. And I know that it works because we've used it and clients see how it works. Maybe I'm totally off basis as I think about the potential of content moving forwards, but I feel, I feel extremely certain.

Cole Heilborn (12:01.76)
that the brands that are going to win are the brands that show up consistently, authentically, and emotionally with their video content. It could be a million dollar film. It could be a $10 iPhone video clip. It doesn't matter the quality or the scale. What matters is the intentionality, the creativity, the audience consideration, understanding how your brand fits into your content, right? Like all the basic things, but

That's what strategy is. And if you know what you're trying to achieve, if you know your brand, if you know the audience and you're creative enough and you know the distribution platforms, you can produce anything. It just takes a little imagination. It takes a little hard work and it takes sitting in the tension and ultimately asking yourself the hard questions. We have taken 20 of our favorite insights from the backcountry marketing filter, put it into a deck.

And we're giving it away for free on our website. If you want to go find it and download it and check it all out, head over to the site, go to the backcountry marketing website page. And on there, you'll find a box where you can enter your email and it'll be sent to you. We are updating our website. It'll be out in the next month or so. Right now we're working off of our old production company website, but it's soon being turned into something much more exciting and something that kind of paints the vision for where port side is going in the future.

I hope you have a great day and don't get too discouraged. Content should be fun. It should be exciting. Sure, it can be frustrating, but just get out there and keep making it happen.

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