At Port Side, we’ve started making videos in the woods and we've never left. As we grew over the years, something kept nagging at us: why do some video campaigns work… and others, no matter how much effort we put in as filmmakers, fall flat? So we got curious and started asking questions.
We’ve now interviewed nearly 200 of the brightest minds in outdoor marketing on the Backcountry Marketing Podcast. Experts, with deep experience navigating the complexity of audience expectations, evolving platforms, and business goals. And somewhere along the way, we realized something: while there’s huge value in individual insights, there’s even more power in the collective wisdom. So we started taking notes. We looked for patterns. We asked harder questions. We started connecting dots between what made some creative work perform.
Over the years, we knew the show influenced how we as filmmakers showed up to a project briefing. We always tried to ask the hard questions, the questions that would pressure test ideas before they became reality. The insights and the way of thinking shared on the show helped us see and better understand the elements outside of production that influenced the outcome of a creative project. Elements like internal leadership, brand, audience, strategy, creative, execution, and the business needs.
Today, we're excited to announce The Backcountry Marketing Filter. The Backcountry Marketing Filter is a methodology and tool that we’ve developed by blending our years of production experience with insights pulled straight from our podcast. It’s a strategic filter we now run every project through—before the camera ever starts rolling.
It’s designed to:
- Spot blind spots early
- Identify red flags and common pitfalls
- Reveal strategic and creative opportunities
- Pressure-test your idea to make sure it’s built to last
Whether you're launching a product, producing a brand film, or planning your next campaign, this filter helps ensure that the work you’re about to put out into the world is actually built to work.
This launch represents more than just a new tool—it marks the evolution of who we are. Port Side is no longer just a production company. We’re a creative studio that pairs high-level thinking with executional firepower. We’re here to guide you through the messy middle of creativity and ask the hard questions that make your content actually connect.
So if you’re tired of guessing whether your content will land—or you’re ready to stop playing it safe and start producing work that breaks through the noise—we built this for you.
