Insights: Trends
Outdoor Business
Diversity in the outdoors
How can we attract diverse talent and participation when we’re so often drawing from a pool that is overwhelming populated by cis-gendered white folk? How do we make it clear that the outdoors has room for everyone, regardless of race, gender identity, ethnicity, age, body type, physical ability, and so...
Video
The current production landscape: where are the women at?
An interesting affirmation occurred the other day in New Hampshire, while filming commercial content for our client, L.L. Bean. We hired a US-based producer named Rebecca Hynes to assist with the project. She is an incredible talent with deep experience in the production world and it came to our surprise that she had only ever worked with one other female director during her 18 year career. We sat down with Rebecca to discuss the production landscape and current diversity issues in film.
Design
Data visualization - making data beautiful
“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data” The Economist Data visualization refers to representing data in a visual context to help people understand and disseminate meaning from that data. The human brain can process visuals 60,000 times faster than written text; by transforming complex data into...
Mountain Culture
An interview with Adam Howard, founder of Height of Land Publications
It’s fair to say that when Adam “Howie” Howard founded Height of Land Publications and purchased the iconic backcountry snowsports title Backcountry in 2002, he had no idea what he was getting into.
Marketing Insights
The age of the consumer, part 2
2018 represented a crisis year for trust on social media. Let’s start with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Just the idea that millions of people’s personal data was used without their consent is enough to shake the foundations of trust. On top of that, Facebook confronted unprecedented pressure from users and...
Are we killing ski culture...one beginner program at a time?
It all started around 2000, when we began hearing the warnings about the health of our industry. The US' National Ski Area Association (NSAA) had engaged in a research project, and the results of the data were alarming. The growth in our sports was not just stagnating, but potentially flatlining...
An interview with Adam Campbell
You could say that professional athletes find themselves pushing their limits because it’s their job- further enabled by their sponsors and fans. Alternatively, you could say that outdoor brands partner with these athletes because they’re inherently the type of people who strive to do what everyone else deems impossible.
Social Media
Why community management is more important than ever
We dug into the importance of community management and how to measure its performance.
Resort Branding
The proof is in the purpose
Taos Ski Valley is an example of what can happen when a brand stays true to its values and rallies around its purpose.
Outdoor Business
Destination marketers: find your essence, define your purpose
A Purpose-driven brand is one where the organization has consciously placed its ‘Why’ front and center– in how it communicates, but more importantly, in how it actually behaves in its business conduct. It drives what it will and will not do. It defines what services it provides, what products it sells, what people it hires, promotes and rewards – in other words, how it does business.
Marketing Insights
Adapting your marketing approach to a constantly changing world
To stay at the forefront and breakthrough, it’s crucial for marketing teams to pay attention to up and coming trends and apply creative, innovative thinking to their work. In this article, we highlight the key trends for 2019 and how marketers can put them to work.
Content Marketing
Responsible content creation in the outdoors
Content is king. The reality is, no matter what the channel, content production and distribution is hot on the minds of brands everywhere. Good Content creators are in short supply, and everyone is doing whatever they can to gain the upper hand in the content race and make their brand stand out. But, in this race to the ultimate content, have some brands lost sight of ethical content production?
Marketing Insights
Why recruiting and retaining is a marketer's game
When done well, an employer’s brand helps attract the right talent, allows prospects to self-select for fit with your organization, and increases the likelihood that they will develop into long-term, valuable, high-producing members of your team.
Content Marketing
What’s your story? Storytelling as an influence tool
We don’t do “advertising”. Rather, we help brands tell their best stories, in ways that create measurable impact. Throughout the years that we’ve been doing this, we’ve unearthed a number of tools and methodologies that we think work quite well. So with that in mind, we popped the hood open and let you in to take a peek at how to use storytelling as an influence tool.
Marketing Insights
A week at Fast Co. Innovation Festival
Last month Origin headed to New York City for Fast Company’s annual Innovation Festival. The festival brings together thousands of forward-thinking creators, makers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and emerging leaders from across the country and around the globe who are embracing change, blazing new trails, and moving our world forward. Dubbed as a “live-storytelling event”, we couldn’t have been more excited.
Outdoor Business
Which way to the outdoors?
To try and get a better understanding of what it’s like to be a “newbie” in outdoor sports today, we put an ear to the ground, so to speak, and reached out to retail staff at stores in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Vermont, and Chamonix.
Social Media
Which brands are winning at social in 2018?
The social media landscape is an ever-changing beast to tame. Nowadays, it often feels like there’s a new feature being released on Facebook or Instagram every week. Understandably, it’s a lot to keep up with. But with most consumers following and engaging with their favourite brands primarily through social media, it’s become a fundamental pillar of a successful digital marketing strategy in 2018. With that in mind, we took a deep dive into which brands are winning social media in 2018 and why.
Video
Ready to make a video?
Once the decision has been made to make a video, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. We've put together an infographic to help you ask the right questions- whether your objectives are brand awareness, comments, conversions or getting people to buy sh*t.
Outdoor Business
Protect Our Winters launches in Canada
POW Canada is a rapidly growing community of outdoor enthusiasts, professional athletes, social innovators, and industry brands dedicated to connecting this collective passion for the outdoors with positive climate action across Canada. Though it is a new organization, it draws on the experience and strength of its parent organization POW USA, but with a distinctly Canadian approach. We asked founding members Mike Douglas and Marie-France Roy for their insights.
Mountain Culture
The Low-Angle Route to Success
Luckily, thanks to the growth of the mountain bike industry, improvements in bicycle technology, and the sophistication with which modern trails are designed, it’s now possible for regular people to enjoy the exciting sport at many resorts. Already, the sport has proven to be a reliable source of summer income...
Outdoor Business
Is your business doing social good?
With more than 25 years of experience running a Certified B Corporation (earned by meeting rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency) that has always had social responsibility at its core, Russ Stoddard offers insights and guidance on how to create a socially conscious business, as well as encouraging words for social entrepreneurs of every generation.
Tourism
Trends in hospitality expectations: 2018
Changing Traveler Demands Digital Nomads - 100% mobile and remote, “Digital nomads” are a new type of global citizen, one with a hunger for new experiences from travel brands. Rather than the “traditional” goal of owning a home filled with 2.5 children and a nice car, millennials are dreaming about...
Outdoor Business
VTS 2018: Presentation Download
More than ever, control over brands has shifted from marketers to consumers. At the same time, tourism destinations are facing a new range of challenges associated with growth and evolving industry trends.
Mountain Culture
The rise of nordic
Finally, we live in a world where technology allows us to share all the cool things we do with everyone we’ve ever met. It exposes people to a bunch of new things, and exposes things to a bunch of new people. It’s also made it easier to show off, driving millennials to take more frequent vacations, and to explore more obscure locations and experiences. The good news is, this desire to explore the world is starting to follow us home, leading to the possibilities of our backyards. And it’s changing the way we ski.
Tourism
Three MTB destination marketing tactics to try in 2018
This year, why not consider exploring a few non-traditional approaches to destination mountain bike marketing that take advantage of burgeoning trends in the bike world? YouTube “Everyman” Creators In the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion of mountain biking YouTube creators posting weekly vlogs about trails, products, tips and...
Content Marketing
Is your brand educational?
It’s a testament to the fact that education and learning is a huge part of what people are looking for online. Whether its answers to a specific question (how to...) or entertaining - and sometimes obscure - learning topics (what is the Fermi Paradox?), there are over 500 million views...
Tourism
How Place Experience (PX) impacts destination brands
Customer experience is changing expectations The marketing industry is abuzz with discussion and articles about Customer Experience (CX) and the impact it has on brands, and rightly so. Today’s consumers are demanding simplicity, instant gratification, and immediate resolution to the slightest inkling of something they don’t deem satisfactory. And as...
Outdoor Business
Outsource or in-house?
Why bring a new marketing specialist in-house? Here are a few factors that would push the in-house decision. Keep in mind here, we’re talking mostly about bringing something to your organization that you don’t currently have (social media expertise, digital marketing, website content strategy, etc): Long-term needs Pros of in-house...
Design
What is motion design? And why do you need it?
Motion graphics, motion design, animation… The list goes on for the number of terms used to refer to what is becoming an essential way to convey information in today’s content saturated society. We sat down with Blair Richmond, Origin’s motion design guru, to get the inside scoop on what is changing, and why you should include motion design as part of your content production.
Content Marketing
We Hate To Burst Your Content Bubble
In the last 5 years, many of us ski area marketers prophesied over content marketing—so much so that today 93% of brands are using content marketing as a cornerstone tactic in their marketing efforts.
Social Media
Instagram is changing and here’s why you should, too
Instagram’s new algorithm is changing the way people interact with brands and everyone else in their feed. With the right approach your brand can find its rhythm and create content worth tapping twice.
Marketing Insights
Focus on the feedback
Origin’s consumer insight study pairs qualitative results with hard data to reveal some valuable marketing insights, with a look into how outdoor sports participants perceive the brands they interact with.
Content Marketing
Who's winning social media 2017
We started looking at the overall social followings of some key outdoor brands in 2014, We checked in in 2015, and have now looked at where we stand at the beginning of 2017. Although followers don’t tell the full picture of who is truly winning the social media race, this metric does give us a good idea of brand awareness and social relevance. The following chart outlines the current follower stats across the core social networks for several leading outdoor brands.
Marketing Insights
Key Media Trends for 2017
Backbone is a public relations, media planning and buying, social media and content marketing agency for active lifestyle brands. We've had the pleasure of collaborating with them on several of our client campaigns most recently with Sun Valley and Taos Ski Valley. We interviewed Laura Merino, Associate Media Director at...
Content Marketing
Tone it up
What is tone of voice? Branding is all about having a look and feel that’s consistently and easily identifiable. Logomarks and typography, for instance, are recognizable design symbols that quickly communicate core elements of a brand without having to say much. But what happens when you DO have something to...
Retail
Is the activewear market oversaturated?
Retailers like H&M, Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters have been in the game for the last few years, but more upscale retailers (Louis Vuitton, for example) are in on the game, too. There are also modern start-ups like Live the Process, Outdoor Voices and countless others who are etching out...
Mountain Culture
Thought leadership: the state of trail running
It’s been two years since I wrote a piece about trail running’s growth and interviewed Adam Campbell, Arc'teryx/Salomon athlete, owner of the Five Peaks Trail Running Series (and one of the nicest guys ever) for his take on things. I wanted to get an update on how the sport has...
Social Media
Key questions outdoor brands are asking about paid social strategies
Here are some of the key questions we’re hearing from outdoor sport marketers, along with Origin’s best answers: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Paid Search? Where should I be putting my dollars? With established media networks like Facebook, Instagram, it would be very easy to blow through an entire marketing budget on...
Retail
Emerging retail trends, online and off
1. Curated collections Retailers are under pressure to deliver really thoughtful products and more than ever, curation is the key to success. Interestingly, lots of brands that started online are now opening physical stores (like birchbox, Frank & Oak and Trunk Club). Two examples of curated collections: The Trunk Club...
