Backcountry Marketing

In this episode, Nic Brandenberger, CMO at Mammut, joins Cole Heilborn to unpack how outdoor brands can move beyond beautiful-yet-forgettable content and create social first marketing that people actually come back for more.

In this episode, Nic and Cole talk about the difference between good content and great creative, why entertainment can be a powerful tool for brand marketing, and how Mammut is using comedy and mini-series to break through the sea of sameness in the outdoor industry. Nic also shares what the team has learned about brand personality, platform-specific creative.

From making every social skit episode work as a standalone asset to finding a distinctive brand voice that doesn't compromise product credibility, Nic challenges brands to earn attention, build familiarity, and create a more meaningful role in people's lives.

About

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative agency that helps outdoor brands build relevance, recognition, and attention.

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In Episode 2 of The Relevance Project, Cole continues working with Kitworks, Loon'r, and SkyGOAT to move from brand strategy into actual content strategy.

The episode starts by pressure-testing the idea of treating a brand like a character. For each of the three brands, those characters are becoming a tool for translating a point of view into recognizable behavior without necessarily putting a fictional character in front of the audience.

The project then takes a detour into the fundamentals of marketing with Jenni Romaniuk. The conversation explores mental availability, category entry points, and the idea that much of marketing's job is helping a brand come to mind in the right buying situations.

But strategy alone isn't enough. Joe Prebich of Benchmade introduces the other side of the equation: the creative still has to be interesting enough to earn attention.

From there, the teams begin turning the strategy into actual content ideas. Kitworks explores gear management and the strange rituals of outdoor life. Loon'r begins building an entire creative world around a war on cold feet. SkyGOAT starts experimenting with the idea of bringing unexpected comfort into uncomfortable outdoor situations.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative agency that helps outdoor brands build relevance, recognition, and attention.

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Creative is often treated as an expense. Joe Prebich, the VP of Benchmade Knife Company, believes the best creative can become one of a brand's most valuable growth assets.

In this episode, Joe shares lessons from his time at Red Bull and Benchmade about why bold ideas matter, how great content can create distribution and long-term brand loyalty, and why much of the outdoor industry has become too safe.

We also explore the importance of having a strong point of view, why brands need to make real choices to stand out, how Benchmade thinks differently about organic and paid content, and why getting closer to the customer still matters more than another audience persona buried in a PowerPoint.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative agency that helps outdoor brands build relevance, recognition, and attention.

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Support Us | We've been bootstrapping this for 6 years. Help us keep this going

Relevance Project | We're building three brands in public. Follow along

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LinkedIn | Connect with Cole

In the first episode of the Relevance Project, Cole sits down with the teams at SkyGOAT, Kitworks, and Loon'r to understand where each brand is starting, what they want organic content to accomplish, and how they'll measure progress along the way.

The conversations reveal a shared challenge. The brands have audiences, products, and stories worth telling, but they haven't yet built a consistent organic content system that creates engagement, strengthens the brand, and continues working even when paid media is turned off.

This episode goes behind the scenes of establishing those benchmarks and introduces the larger experiment ahead: developing content that leads with value, earns attention, and *might* create a more durable path to growth.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative agency that helps outdoor brands build relevance, recognition, and attention.

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Professor Jenni Romaniuk, Research Professor and Associate Director at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Adelaide University, breaks down the science behind how brands are remembered.

We explore why memory is at the heart of effective marketing, why only a small percentage of buyers are in-market at any given time, and what marketers should be doing to build future demand. Jenni explains the concepts of mental availability, category entry points, and distinctive assets, and why they're some of the strongest predictors of long-term brand growth.

We also discuss why so much advertising goes unnoticed, how outdoor brands can escape the sea of sameness, and why marketers should stop trying to communicate everything at once and instead focus on leaving behind one useful memory.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side. We help outdoor brands grow by building a content engine. Want to learn more about how we can help?

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Cole shares the thinking behind The Relevance Project and why he believes relevance has become one of the most important competitive advantages available to brands today.

The goal of marketing hasn't changed, but the landscape and tools have. Attention is becoming scarcer, paid media is becoming more expensive, audiences have more control over what they consume than ever before, and brands now have access to free distribution at a scale that was unimaginable just a decade ago.

The challenge? Most brands are still operating as if nothing has changed.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a content strategy studio that helps outdoor brands become relevant, recognized, and build an audience. Want to learn more about how we can help?

Enjoy this episode and discover other resources below:

Relevance Project | We're building three brands in public. Follow along

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After reviewing 19 brand applications, Port Side has selected three brands to work with: Kitworks, loon'r, and SkyGOAT.

The Relevance Project is a public experiment exploring whether outdoor brands can become more relevant, recognizable, and memorable by creating audience-first content that builds attention, trust, and long-term demand.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a content strategy studio that helps outdoor brands become relevant, recognized, and build an audience. Want to learn more about how we can help?

Enjoy this episode and discover other resources below:

Relevance Project | We're building three brands in public.

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Andy Pearson, VP of Creative at Liquid Death, explains why brands should stop thinking like advertisers and start thinking like entertainers. We dive into how Liquid Death built one of the largest organic audiences without relying on paid media, why humor is an underrated marketing tool, and why the best brands behave more like memorable characters than carefully managed style guides.

We also pressure test some of the ideas behind The Relevance Project, discussing audience building, paid media, share of voice, and why Liquid Death doesn't have a brand book.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a content strategy + production studio that helps outdoor brands become relevant, recognized, and build an audience. Want to learn more about how we can help?

Enjoy this episode and discover other resources below:

Relevance Project | We're building three brands in public. Follow along

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The Relevance Project is underway! 15 brands have applied to be considered. If you want to apply, reach out to us and submit your application by June 26th.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a content strategy studio that helps outdoor brands become relevant, recognized, and build an audience. Want to learn more about how we can help?

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In this solo episode, Cole shares why he believes many outdoor brands already possess something unique beneath the surface, but struggle to translate that uniqueness into content that earns attention, builds an audience, and drives business results.

Cole also announces a public experiment: We're looking for one outdoor brand willing to partner with Port Side to test these ideas in real time. Together, we'll document the process, share the wins and failures publicly, and explore what it actually takes to build relevance and an audience through organic content.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a content strategy studio that helps outdoor brands become relevant, recognized, and build an audience. Want to learn more about how we can help?

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Laura Jastram-Wrend joins Cole live at the HikeExpo to discuss what most outdoor brands are still getting wrong about the power of social. Laura breaks down why social should no longer be treated like an afterthought, how creator ecosystems outperform one-off influencer activations, and why "edutainment" is the new standard for outdoor content.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating content strategy + production for outdoor brands, rooted in emotion. Want to learn more about how we can help?

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Cole hit the floor at the HikeExpo to interview founders about the reality of running social at a small brand. Is there an alternative to spending $10,000 a month on paid ads in a small business where cash flow is critical?

Maren Hamilton, former Head of Social at The North Face and current Director of Global Brand and Community at popFly. We break down her core thesis: brand is social and social is brand. Maren shares why brands must stop treating social as a downstream channel, how to bring social thinking upstream into campaign planning and what it takes to build a social-first brand.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating video strategy + production for active brands, rooted in emotion.

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Resilient businesses are built by building an audience.

In this solo episode, Cole Heilborn challenges the assumption that people inherently care about brand campaigns, product launches, or high-production content, and instead argues that attention must be earned through relevance and value over time.

Drawing from recent conversations, industry observations, and Port Side's own projects, Cole breaks down the growing disconnect between how brands produce content and how audiences actually consume it. While many brands continue to rely on intermittent campaign cycles, the most durable brands are consistently investing in content that serves, entertains, or resonates with their audience.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating content strategy + production for outdoor brands, rooted in emotion. Want to learn more about how we can help?

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In this episode, Greg Randolph, VP of Marketing at DECKED, and Bridget Noonan, Senior Brand Director at DECKED, break down one of the biggest tensions in modern marketing: brand vs performance.

We talk about the rise of performance marketing, why it worked so well for so long, and why many brands are now hitting a ceiling. Greg and Bridget share how DECKED is thinking about long-term growth, what it actually means to invest in brand, and why community, storytelling, and customer connection are becoming more important than ever.

We also get into the risks of over-relying on paid channels, how to think about creative and frequency, and finding a balance between brand and performance marketing

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating content strategy + production for outdoor brands, rooted in emotion. Want to learn more about how we can help?

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What is the value of great creative, and what happens when brands let marketing metrics dictate the work before the idea is even fully formed?

In this episode, Cole sits down with Rafael Oliveira, former Creative Director at Tracksmith, to talk about the role of the creative director, the tension between marketing and creative, and why distinction matters more than ever in a world where so many brands are producing work that looks the same. Rafa shares how Tracksmith approached creative as a long-term brand-building tool, why subtlety is often the marker of great work, and how brands can influence behavior by creating content that makes people feel something first.

They also get into the risk of sameness, why minimum viable creative is the wrong starting point, and how brands should think about making work that adds value beyond the transaction.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating content strategy + production for active brands, rooted in emotion.

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Episode Description

Most outdoor brands share a similar origin story: a founder identifies a need in the wild, builds a product in a garage, and grows a company from there. But as brands scale and growth pressures increase, something often gets lost in "the middle." The result is a sea of epic imagery, interchangeable storytelling, and campaigns that feel indistinguishable once the logo is removed.

Ryan Andrist, a marketing leader whose career spans The North Face, Sea to Summit, and Starbucks, joins the show to explore a persistent challenge in the outdoor industry.

Ryan and Cole unpack how growth pressures can muddy brand clarity and why the consumer insight is more important than ever.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating content strategy + production for active brands, rooted in emotion.

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Episode Description

In this episode, host Cole Heilborn sits down with Ryan Watson, CMO and COO at MTNTOUGH Fitness Labs, to unpack a hot take that should make every outdoor marketer pause: brand marketing for the sake of impressions is dead.

Ryan breaks down why measurement has changed the game, why "one big campaign, one big message" is an outdated operating system, and how the best brands are blending performance rigor with brand-level creativity. We also go deep on community as the next frontier of differentiation.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating content strategy + production for active brands, rooted in emotion.

Enjoy this episode and discover other resources below:

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In this episode (initially aired on June 18th, 2025), Cole sits down with Chris Burkard—photographer, creative director, adventurer, and storyteller. Chris shares his unique perspective on navigating the constant changes shaping the outdoor industry, creativity, and marketing. They dive deep into the evolving role of creatives in a constantly changing outdoor industry. From the blurred lines between artistry and strategy to the challenges of maintaining authenticity in a data-driven world, Chris shares insights from his expansive career and unique perspectives on storytelling, marketing, and brand-building.

This is part one of a two-part series featuring Chris. If you have a question for Chris on part 2 let us know.

Key Takeaways

•

The role of creatives is changing

•

The path to success for a piece of creative has changed over the last 15 years

•

Many brands are asking creatives to provide directions to a destination that doesn't exist.

•

The balance between creative risk and data-backed decision-making

•

Opportunities for creatives and feedback

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‍

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Every company has a brand, but very few have built one intentionally or with differentiation. We use the word "brand" interchangeably with "company," when in reality most companies have never done the work required to intentionally shape what their brand stands for.

In this episode, I sit down with Marc Peruzzi, Creative Director at Cache Seven, to unpack one of the most misunderstood ideas in outdoor marketing: the difference between a company and a brand.

Marc shares why so many outdoor companies lose relevance when they chase "brand building" instead of grounding themselves in real people, real places, and real stories. We talk about authenticity, storytelling, influencer marketing, and why honesty consistently outperforms hype in the outdoor industry.

This conversation is a reminder that brand is not something you manufacture. It is something that emerges when a company knows who it is and who it serves.

About:

This podcast is produced by Port Side, a creative production studio creating content strategy + production for active brands, rooted in emotion.

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