Matt Trappe (00:00:00):

Why do you see so many campaigns and brands out in theworld that look so much the same? That is not a reflection of the execution ofthose campaigns. They were shot beautifully. I'm sure they actually nailedtheir brief and they did a great job. But upstream, I don't think the brandsare differentiating enough because of a marketing mentality that is onplaybooks and sort of data-driven, backwards looking processes that have morecertainty to them versus more of a creative input that seeks more originalityand differentiation.

Cole Heilborn (00:00:39):

On this podcast, we go behind the scenes with industryexperts as they break down what it takes to produce creative work that works.If you're seeking insights from some of the sharpest minds of the industry,this is your guidebook to producing creative work that actually delivers.Welcome to the Backcountry Marketing Podcast to today I'm sitting down withMatt Trappe. He is the photographer, director and creator. He's a brandmarketer in the running world. Matt, welcome to the

Matt Trappe (00:01:02):

Show. Thank you, Cole, for having me. I have looked up toyour podcast for a long time, long time listener, first time caller, and I'mreally excited to be here. So thank you so much for having me. Oh,

Cole Heilborn (00:01:12):

Thanks for the kind words. I've said it so many times, butthis show wouldn't be anything without the folks who actually sit down and havethese conversations. So right back at you, Matt, one of the things I appreciateabout you is I feel like you have a ton of varied perspective on our industry.You've worked at the brand level, you've worked in the production world, thecreative world, and I've also seen you engaging a lot with actually formerguests on this show, Matt Powell and other folks who come out the industry froma more economics perspective.

Matt Trappe (00:01:42):

And

Cole Heilborn (00:01:42):

What I love about the things that you talk about and thethings that you post about in your work is you're kind of blending all three ofthese worlds together. And when I think about trying to do that, I get quicklyoverwhelmed and frustrated, which is why one of the reasons why I'm excited tochat with you is because you're trying to bring all these things together withyour unique perspective that you have. Why is it something that, why do youspend the effort trying to wrestle through that?

Matt Trappe (00:02:11):

Well, I don't know. I'm not doing it so deliberately asmuch as just following what I'm interested in, where my interests, where mybackground lie, it's kind of all coming together now because I really learnedthis industry really well. I learned running industry really well from shootingwith athletes, shooting about all the races, all the events I've shot, allsorts of different product launches from the footwear to apparel and you nameit. I've worked with so many different brands and I've really felt like I'vegotten to know the culture, the sport, the people and the players really,really well. And also just the storytelling approach that I like to have andthat I see from others. I've become, I think, a good storyteller throughoutthat experience. So all these things came together within my background, and Ithink I just have a, I don't know if it's unique, I just have my ownperspective on what I see happening in the running industry and in the outdoorworld and to some degree, and I'm just trying to articulate what I see from myposition to try to make us all better.

Cole Heilborn (00:03:24):

Yeah, see, if you had to sum your entire perspective upinto one word, what word would you choose? Oh

Matt Trappe (00:03:30):

Man. The one word stuff is because the simplicity is moredifficult than complexity. And so one word is so difficult would maybe it's twowords, but something along the lines of being dual brained. I think I can seethings from a creative standpoint, but also from really practical sort ofbusiness and numbers standpoint. So maybe that's a hyphen word. That's oneword.

Cole Heilborn (00:04:00):

I'll accept it. That works.

Matt Trappe (00:04:01):

Okay.

Cole Heilborn (00:04:04):

Yeah. So before we dive in, before we continue to dive in,rather, I guess I want to put kind of a disclaimer out there. I think in thisepisode we might be a little critical of the industry, and I guess that isn'tnecessarily a reflection on any individual people or persons who are working inthe industry. I think you and I approach this from the perspective that we wantthings to be better for whatever that means, whatever better means. And so Iguess one of my questions is question, what role do people who, and I know youhave a bigger background than just production and just creative, but what roledo creatives and people in production have when it comes to talking about thesedecisions that are often made upstream, well beyond folks out in the field executingwith the camera? And I guess to add to that, I think we're going to getcritical, and Matt, I know you also have some solutions that we're probablygoing to bring up at the end of this episode, so folks feel like we're beingharsh. We're not just trying to poke holes. We're actually, we do want to bringsome ideas and solutions to the table. Also,

Matt Trappe (00:05:07):

I guess I don't think of it as being critical. I think Isee things changing so fast and they're not being, ways that worked beforedon't necessarily work now. And so we're all just learning and evolving at sucha breakneck speed that I guess I don't view having different opinions ordifferent ideas or any feedback on things as being critical in a negative way.It's more just contributing to this zeitgeist of learning and evolving and allof us figuring out what is happening and how do we adapt to that movingforward. That's sort of, I guess my perspective on the idea of being overlycritical. But I see, I guess back to your question about how we can be better,and I think in traditional production, you've always, in the past, been handeda brief and it's like, here's what we're making. Can you execute on this?

(00:06:10):

And the deeper I got into that, and after doing that alot, I started to have a lot more ideas on why we were doing this in the firstplace. What was the concept, what's the messaging, what's the strategy of thepurpose of creating this thing in the first place? And that was often gettinglost. And I had coming from the business background, just like a lot morequestions and I wanted a lot more visibility into what's the strategy here. Anda lot of times you don't always get that right on a production. You don'talways get the bigger picture. You're not always informed or brought into that,right. Early in the process, I'm sure you can probably relate to Cole. So Istarted just asking more questions and trying to move into that conversation. Ifelt I had a lot to add, especially within running.

(00:07:01):

I knew this industry, I knew the culture, I knew thepeople really, really well, and I wanted to provide some feedback to that therethat wasn't always met and met with everybody. But in some situations thatwasn't always met positively. I mean, I had one brand that wanted to shoot aproduct campaign and they had some product they wanted to integrate for trailrunning that was a waste pack. You're very basic fanny pack that we might callit here in the states. And I gave them feedback on it. I was like, look,nobody's going to run with that. That's going to bounce around.

(00:07:40):

That's not a good look for the brand. If you want to comeacross it, you really know the sport really well in this ad. And they didn'tlike that. They didn't want that feedback. This was several years ago now, butthey told me that they thought I was working on other campaigns for otherrunning brands at the same time. And it's like, well, okay, well I sign NDAs, Ican't tell you that, but of course I work on campaigns or other, this is whyyou're hiring me. And so we ended our relationship with that shoot neverhappened, and I chalk it up to some of that feedback being unwelcomed that Iprovided. But I think there is more of a role that creatives can play upstreamin some of these processes, and I'd like to see that start to happen more. AndI guess without going into just about everything I had to say, I'll turn itback to you there, Cole, but I think that's kind of the part of the largerpoint that I'm trying to make.

Cole Heilborn (00:08:46):

So in that example, you're critiquing the product thatthey're asking you to shoot. I mean, that's like a decision that was made twoyears ago and now they're receiving criticism from the field that, oh, maybethis isn't actually a good fit. That's pretty brutal feedback to hear, I thinkfrom the brand's perspective,

Matt Trappe (00:09:05):

I'm sure. But I think you need to really know the culture,really know that your audience pretty early in the process and you had therecent pod episode that you did with Chris Burkard really spoke to me. He madethe point that nobody wants to be hired for just being able to operate acamera. We all want to believe we have more. And so I really subscribed to thatand I spoke up and it wasn't super discouraging for me. It just was like, okay,there's really a need for more of a voice upstream in the process and I want totry to have that more. And so I'm doing that with a newsletter. I'm doing thatwith some consulting. I'm doing that by starting my own brand and trying to putmy money where my mouth is. But I think that creatives can have more of animpact upstream than we're often allowed to have. And I think some brands thatdo that start to see more success.

Cole Heilborn (00:10:11):

What are some of those impacts that you'd like to try andinfluence or what have you influenced?

Matt Trappe (00:10:17):

I've worked with more startups, I think, than big brandsto where, and it speaks to a lot of the success small brands are having reallyin general, the small brands, especially in running right now, are reallybooming brands like satisfy brands like Bandit that really have a distinctidentity that they're able to speak to and that maybe is a bit easier for themto do as smaller brands that aren't owned by the publicly traded ormultinational corporations. But those are the examples that I look at that arereally having a bigger impact within the public because they know an audienceand they know their customer, so to speak. I don't always like that word asmuch, but they know their audience a lot better and they're just moreentrenched in the culture of a sport.

Cole Heilborn (00:11:15):

Do you feel like that's not the case with larger brands ordoes that tend not to be the case?

Matt Trappe (00:11:20):

I think it's more difficult. I think they become a bitmore disconnected the larger that you get. I think you have more chefs in thekitchen making decisions. I think the decisions start to become more removedfrom the ground level employees that are really out in the world as they becomemore layers of management and the C-suite people aren't necessarily showing upand running at the races and things like that. And so I think it becomes a lotmore difficult. And that's probably one of the reasons that you see this happenor the disconnect more often in those larger corporations. I mean, there's one,I'll give you another example too. There was a brand campaign that I shot for abrand a couple of years ago that was about the theme was rule breakers, and it'san authenticity story I suppose. This was a large multinational corporation.

(00:12:19):

There was no rule breaking culturally going on. Everythingis very process oriented and it just was not, I think it was meant to speak tothe customer, but it was not at all authentic to the brand and what they weredoing. And that disconnect was really huge. And so it's hard being asked toshoot campaigns and just upfront that this idea, this idea isn't going to work,this isn't connected to your brand. There's no cohesion here in this largerbrand story that we're telling. And that was a really strong example for mewhere I felt like more of a storyteller or a creative mindset would've helpedtoo. You can, you want to be able to share your work and you're shootingsomething like that and you're asked to execute it and this isn't going towork. And no matter how well you execute that, I mean you could shoot thatcampaign beautifully. It could be perfect, but this isn't going to hit becauseit just doesn't align with the brand, the message, the product, the whole storydoesn't fit that message. And I think that was an example too of the need thatI saw just to try to speak to this disconnect that was upstream from anyproduction like you and I were doing.

Cole Heilborn (00:13:41):

Yeah, so I guess my first experience with what you'redescribing was a couple years ago I was talking with the potential clients andthey were talking about they wanted to go out and shoot these ambassador shortstories, like little profiles on their ambassadors. I was like, okay, thatsounds rad. And then as we started talking and we started getting into more ofthe weeds and talking about why are we making this? What are we trying tocommunicate? What are the stories? How does it ladder up to your brands? Howare you going to deploy these? There weren't a lot of answers to thosequestions. And so I told them, I was like, okay, we could go out and shootthis, but if there isn't a good strategy or there isn't cohesion, I wonder howeffective it's going to be. And the proposal that I ended up putting forwardwas I gave three options. Option one was, or option three was, okay, we're justgoing to go out and do production. Option two was we're going to come and doproduction, but we're also going to help with content strategy and making thisfeel more cohesive. Option three was we're going to do those two things andwe're going to help solidify some of these brand questions that haven't yetbeen answered. And so we were going to pull in strategists and we were going topull in brand experts amongst our production team.

(00:14:56):

And the feedback I was getting the whole time was like,yeah, we need clarity. We need help figuring out how to move forwards. And thenwhen it came time to making a decision, they were like, we really just needsomeone who's going to go out and shoot these things. And I was like,interesting. So all the feedback I was hearing was like, we need help findingclarity in our direction. But then at the end of the day, and maybe it wasthrough a number of other reasons, but ultimately they were like, we just needsomeone to go and shoot. And at that point I was like, huh, do people, what'sthe perception of people in production? Is it we're really just hired guns andwe're just doing everyone's bidding? Or is there a role and a place for usupstream to influence some of these things? And that's led me on a multiyeartwo journey to try and answer that question.

Matt Trappe (00:15:45):

I think maybe what you were running into that I see oftenis there's just a time crunch too.

Cole Heilborn (00:15:53):

Sure.

Matt Trappe (00:15:53):

And if you start talking about it too much, it's like,okay, well we have this deadline, we have to hit this quarterly goal and wehave this plan and we have to stay on track. And so it's like, just go do it.Now I have to get onto the next thing. And people internally are very busy andthey have a lot of things on their plate, and I have a lot of empathy for thatbecause I've been in that situation in the corporate world before and that'sreally difficult. So I think that's not to fault people too much, but I thinkthat's some of what brands are up against internally is trying to manage allthe things going on and the timelines that they have. But you're totally rightin that, and these are the questions I'm kind of asking out loud and maybe justproposing to the audience, what is the path for creatives within the corporateworld? If you are in production, you're a creative person and you want toreally contribute to a brand upstream in this way, is it an agency model? Dobrands bring people in-house and incorporate this? Do they encourage this sortof creative thinking, creative strategy thought? What is the career path forsomeone looking to do that? And I think that's something would have a lot ofvaluable effect on the industry. And a good question we should be asking.

Cole Heilborn (00:17:16):

I think those are great questions. Do you have any answersto those?

Matt Trappe (00:17:21):

So I have a distinction that it makes a lot of sense tome. I want to see what you think about it, maybe what the audience thinks aboutit, A distinction between a marketer and a creative and the way that I thinktraditionally, maybe they're thought of sort as one and the same. I woulddefine a marketer as someone that prefers playbook, a playbook, maybe processand some certainty to that. But then I would look at a creative as someonecompletely on the other end of that spectrum, someone who is terrified of aplaybook in that they may be perceived as this copying this thing. No creativewants to be seen as just copying something. They really seek originality, andthat really separates the term marketing and creative on opposite ends of aspectrum there. I'd just encourage more of that creative thinking in businessand in marketing.

Cole Heilborn (00:18:22):

Okay. Let's dive into that. I'm curious to examine that. Iguess my first question would be why is it important to distinguish betweenmarketing and creative? I guess what does that first do for us if we determinethese are two different things?

Matt Trappe (00:18:36):

Yeah. Well, I mean I think it starts to answer thequestion that we're asking, right? Why do you see so many campaigns and brandsout in the world that look so much the same? Why do so many? And there was onethat came out in the running world not long ago that was for a max cushion shoefor two different brands. And they unfortunately for both of them launched onthe same day. And the campaigns that came out were, I mean, they wereabsolutely identical shot in an urban setting showing this shoe squish. Eventhe graphics were super similar. These are two totally different runningbrands. And I posted about that commenting about the sea of sameness, and Ithink that happens and that another point I want to make on that is that is nota reflection of the execution of those campaigns. They were shot beautifully.I'm sure they actually nailed their brief and they did a great job. Butupstream, I don't think the brands are differentiating enough because of amarketing mentality that is on playbooks and sort of data-driven, backwardslooking processes that have more certainty to them versus more of a creativeinput that seeks more originality and differentiation.

Cole Heilborn (00:19:55):

Interesting. Okay. So in your idea of creative versusmarketing, so marketing is a little more rule bound, a little more processfocused and creative is what the Wild West or how would you define creative?

Matt Trappe (00:20:09):

Well, so it is rooted in really knowing your audience.It's rooted in really knowing your sport, the culture that you're speaking to,and then you're creative within those bounds, but you're creating somethingnew. I mean, that's where the term creative comes from, is that originality.Going back to the small brands that we see in running, one of the brands that'sreally eating up a lot of the oxygen in the room is a smaller brand that'sgrowing rapidly called Satisfy Running. And this is an example of thisoriginality Satisfy is from Paris. They speak to a southwest US sort of vibeand mindset, which is so disconnected from Paris. They came out withperformance running products on the absolute premium end of the pricingspectrum, I mean a 200 t-shirt. And they've met Ben, met with Wild Success andjust saw a huge infusion of capital and investment in the brand at the Runningevent trade show in November.

(00:21:22):

The oxygen they're eating up in the room, the chat on thefloor was all about satisfy this small brand more than the massive runningbrands we all know. And if you had looked at data, if you had looked atplaybooks, no one was asking for a brand like that. No one was asking forproducts at that price. No one expected a Parisian brand to have a Southwest USaesthetic. And it's working. It was original and it was its own thing. So thatkind of speaks, I guess, to my point about marketers really being data-drivenand sort of looking for things that already exist and replicating those versusa creative being original and coming up with something new despite, of coursethere's a bit more inherent risk with that, but in that case, that was really,really effective.

Cole Heilborn (00:22:24):

So what about Satisfy makes them work? Is it their deepunderstanding of their audience or what are the ingredients you think that are

Matt Trappe (00:22:33):

Working? I mean, so this is talked about a lot. It'sspeculated a lot within the running industry. I think from a brandingstandpoint, they have a very distinct and clear identity and message and theyknow the people that they're speaking to and it is not everyone and they'recompletely okay with that. I think there is an authenticity in that thefounder, this is all his actual interests, so they're launching a running shoeright now that is fashioned in many ways after a radio control car like an RCcar,

(00:23:03):

The tread on the bottom of the shoe, it mimics a tire onan RC car and the grip that that might have, and it looks very much like that.It doesn't look like a car tire. It has the larger nobbies on the bottom. Andso even the box looks and the decals that come with the shoe, this is launchingnext month in March, and all of this mimics in our ccar. No one asked for arunning shoe to parallel on our ccar, but there's a lot of authenticity in thatthese are their general interests, and so they just dive really, really deepinto these stories and then communicate them really, really well and that drawspeople in.

Cole Heilborn (00:23:44):

So you've mentioned twice now that no one was asking forthis brand to pop up, but it also sounds like it's hard to put your finger onwhat exactly makes it unique. Does it speak to you in a particular way? Are youthe audience? Are you not the audience?

Matt Trappe (00:24:00):

No, I'm not. I don't know. I don't own anything satisfy.I'm not the audience, but I very much respect what they're doing and howthey're being so distinctly and unapologetically themselves and it's working.It sort of flips the model on its head. Traditionally in marketing, you go outand you find consumer insights and then you bring those internally and youfigure out how to translate those into your brand and your product. And this iskind of the opposite. I mean, they just said, this is what we are, this is whatwe believe in. And they started from a place of authenticity to themselves, tothe company, to the people that worked there and then put that out into theworld versus maybe finding insights and customers or an audience externallythat might not fit your brand internally. And having to try to match those upthat can start to show through, like I mentioned before in some brand campaignsthat just don't quite hit. So that I think that, I mean, it's such a buzzwordauthenticity, but that's really what it is for me. They live this life that isthe brand, and I think that that shows and speaks to a lot of their success.

Cole Heilborn (00:25:10):

How does that impact their creative? Does it feel verythem?

Matt Trappe (00:25:14):

Yeah, I think it makes it easy. I think they just say,this is cool. We think this is cool. This is the lifestyle that we live. Andthey just story tale through that lens, which is so real that they don't haveto try, if that makes sense.

Cole Heilborn (00:25:30):

Well, if you work backwards from a brief, which is whatusually we're given, you have a brief, then maybe there's a content strategyand then there's a marketing plan, and then above that there's a brand and thenthere's something up at that level that is differentiating the brand from allthe other brands out there theoretically. But if that differentiation componentisn't strong, then that trickles all the way down to the briefs and

Matt Trappe (00:25:56):

Ultimately the

Cole Heilborn (00:25:58):

Creative that gets produced.

Matt Trappe (00:25:59):

Correct.

Cole Heilborn (00:26:00):

Do you feel like that is one of the common stumblingblocks that many brands have? I

Matt Trappe (00:26:05):

Think that absolutely speaks to it. I think it's a lot of,it's either a lot of the same or it's just not clear from up high inorganizations. And so that ends up just becoming bland by the time thattrickles down and ends up getting slid over to us in a brief. And I think thereason that I'm leaning on creatives and incorporating them more earlier inthis process is, and this too as a storyteller, your skill is being able towade through all of the side stories, being able to wade through all of the messand see the thread of a storyline and communicate that in a really engagingway, which is really marketing and which is really what all of this is about,isn't it? It's about communicating this identity in this story of a brand thatpeople will identify with and will resonate with them and not just selling apuffy jacket or a product. And some are marginally better than others, etcetera, et cetera, but there's this whole emotional component of reallyconnecting with people and so that when they put on that jacket or those shoes,they feel like they're part of this thing and this brand speaks to me and thathas its own separate set of value than the actual product features or what haveyou. And I think that's kind of what all this is getting at is providing morevalue from that side for brands versus just these product features andbenefits. Nicholas Bling, who's

Cole Heilborn (00:27:47):

On the show, gosh, maybe. Oh

Matt Trappe (00:27:48):

Yeah, he's great.

Cole Heilborn (00:27:49):

Yeah, he said this thing that stuck out to me, he waslike, great marketing is great storytelling full. And I was like, oh my gosh,yes. He's so right. But because a good story knows its audience, it knows whatit's trying to communicate, it knows ideally what makes this story unique. Andyou could use those same principles at the 30,000 foot level way upstream whenmaking those big brand choices.

Matt Trappe (00:28:17):

Yes. And he is really, I have to go back and look at thatepisode. He is fantastic. If you look at in running, anyone in trail runningespecially knows the Solomon TV episodes that Solomon made, Solomon Trailrunning TV before it merged with the skiing, the trail running TV in the 20 1516 era was so great and was so deep and really resonated with the lifestyle andthe culture in trail running. It really raised the tide of the sport andbrought people into this sport without being overtly like Solomon, Solomon,Solomon, here's our product, here's our product. But there's still stories thatresonate with people to this day about the lifestyle of trail running. And thatstarted with Nicholas Bling and Solomon, and he actually brought it fromskiing, I think over to show running, but was told beautifully by Dean Leslie,the African attachment down in South Africa. I think Dean's outfit now iscalled Wandering Fever, but they then did a beautiful job of executing on whatwas an excellent upstream idea to really attach the brand to the lifestyle oftrail running and speak to that. So he absolutely gets it and was a fantasticguest. I mean, it's a lot of what we're talking about, isn't it?

Cole Heilborn (00:29:39):

Yeah. Just from a different perspective. That's right.From a different side of the equation. His episode is 1 74. I just was lookingit up if people want to go

Matt Trappe (00:29:48):

Check it out. There you

Cole Heilborn (00:29:49):

Go. It's called the tectonic. Tectonic forces are changingthe industry Will. We listened. He had a lot of foreboding advice from brandsin the early two thousands and it was drawing parallels to maybe some of thedirection that brands are going today.

Matt Trappe (00:30:04):

Absolutely. It's that storytelling mindset. And I think ifyou incorporate that, because at the time Nicholas is really high in theSolomon organization and he had that creative mindset, he had that storytellingapproach and embedded it within that organization from the high levels. And Imean that trickled down. So I mean that's a solution if we're talking aboutsolutions, it's keeping that mindset in high levels of the organization.

Cole Heilborn (00:30:29):

Talk about, I want to ask you about this idea. So we weretalking about marketing and creative as being two separate entities, but theyalso need each other. They're symbiotic. Something I hear when people talkabout creative, they talk about taking swings and not being afraid to takerisks or risk management and not wanting to take risks because of the fear offailure. And when I think about, I wonder if that's the wrong mentality to havebecause I think that sort of language assumes that if you're going to take abold stance with a piece of creative, that it inherently is like it's eithergoing to be a flop or it's either going to be a success and there's no way tohedge your bets and to do your research to inform good creative.

(00:31:18):

And I guess I want to come back to that idea because Ifeel like there's so much that can be done if you have the time to reallyvalidate good creative before it goes out into the world, to take this quotebig risk and de-risk it through research, through an understanding of youraudience, through testing, through insights, through white space analysis.There's so much that can be done. And I realize that sounds like a lot, and itsounds like it costs a lot and it sounds like it would take a long time, but ifthe alternative is putting out creative that flops or doesn't stand foranything, we want to take the more detailed process to produce things thatwork.

Matt Trappe (00:31:58):

I think that, I mean, the first thing I would want to backup and say defining creative in an organization is this shouldn't be onedepartment or one group that is, this should be a mindset across theorganization. I mean, even over in your operations groups, there should be acreative approach to problem solving, to coming up with ways to maybe allowyour company to do things you might not otherwise be able to do withinstringent existing processes. This is a mindset within an organization andshould not be siloed within one department because difficult if you're creativeand you're handed things way downstream and you have to come up with the storyin arrears on why this product should be relevant. I mean, this should be a wayupstream in the process embedded in the group. Did the rest of your question?

Cole Heilborn (00:32:57):

Yeah. My question is, people talk about creative beingthis thing that's either,

Matt Trappe (00:33:01):

It's

Cole Heilborn (00:33:01):

Like a big swing, but there are ways to manage that

Matt Trappe (00:33:04):

Risk, right? And you can talk about white space analysis,you can get all MBA on it, but what I see being the most successful is whenthese brands and the people that work there are just passionate themselvesabout the audience that they're speaking to and they're just part of it.They're at the events, they know the athletes on a personal level. They arewithin just the zeitgeist of this culture that their brand is striving to be apart of, and then the insights then are just their lifestyle. You are just init. And I think it's perceived as risk by people that don't know it orunderstand it that well. But if in this example, this sport of running reallywell, if you know the athletes, if you've been to the New York City marathon adozen times, you can very comfortably speak to that audience and know whatresonates with them.

(00:34:13):

And that doesn't feel risky at all to you. And so the dataangle is difficult because it of course should not be a completely neglected,but I think it becomes a crutch in that it's an easy scapegoat if somethinggoes wrong to be like, well, the data said that, and so I just followed thedata so it's not my fault. And that is a very safe approach. Everyone wants tokeep their jobs and not that I think you should be, maybe that's the problem,is this perception that you're going to be fired if you get this wrong. I thinkthe corporations, these businesses should just encourage more risk-taking,trust their people, live the lifestyle that you're speaking to and just be init. And that is the way to mitigate a lot of that risk in my experience.

Cole Heilborn (00:35:07):

Do you feel like the brands feel like they're taking arisk with a piece of creative is because they don't fully understand theiraudience?

Matt Trappe (00:35:14):

I think the people that make decisions high up inorganizations that they themselves don't very well understand the audience. Ithink then they perceive things as big risks, and so they want to see data thatback everything up to make those decisions. And when you're trying to take abig risk or you're trying to do something new in satisfies example, there isn'tgoing to be data that's going to show that because if there was data thatshowed that every brand would probably have that data and they'd all probablybe doing the same thing. And so a lot of those new ideas that don't have thedata to support them because they're new, they just don't happen most of thetime.

Cole Heilborn (00:35:53):

But you're not anti-D data.

Matt Trappe (00:35:55):

No, of course not. I mean, I think that if I'm trying tomake decisions, I want to have as much data as I can to see where things aregoing, to see maybe where trends are, what has worked, what hasn't worked. Allthat informs ideas. But I wouldn't make a decision solely based on, well, thedata says to do this, but personally within maybe our group that really knowsour audience really well, that doesn't align or that has already been donebefore and doesn't speak to our story, I'm not going to follow that justbecause the dataset says to,

Cole Heilborn (00:36:32):

Yeah, I like that it's a, it's balanced. It's balanced. Itcan inform cement. As a jumping off platform for brainstorming further, what doyou think about gut feels in the creative space that gets thrown around a lot?Like, oh, I have a gut feeling that this is going to work. Do you trust yourgut? When do you not trust your gut?

Matt Trappe (00:36:51):

I trust my gut when other people that I also trust willalign with a gut feeling. I mean, that's sort of probably the double check forme is I have others whose opinions and whose perspectives that I trust if theycan support. And that's where teams are important, that you can work togetherthen towards those ideas. So I think the gut feelings often come from insightsmaybe in your brain that you can't quite connect the dots logically, but Ithink there's a lot behind the scenes from an intuition standpoint that givethose a lot more validity than maybe we're able to articulate initially. So Ilove diving down, diving down those roads a lot of times there's somethingthere.

Cole Heilborn (00:37:40):

I guess something we haven't defined necessarily is youwe're talking about creative, we're talking about organizations upstream maybeneeding more creative or creative being baked into the culture. What does thateven mean to you

Matt Trappe (00:37:54):

To have creative baked into the culture?

Cole Heilborn (00:37:56):

Is it a mindset? Can you define that to some degree?

Matt Trappe (00:37:59):

Yeah, it's absolutely a mindset. It, it's thinkingdifferently. It's not necessarily following examples, it's iterating on things.It's trying to push the envelope of what's possible. It's a mindset that Ithink I spoke to before that wants to be original, that fears imitation andthat just dares to be different. And I think rewarding that and making spacefor that within an organization and not punishing people for taking thosechances, those risks on having new ideas goes a really, really long way in the longevityof a brand.

Cole Heilborn (00:38:56):

Well, you mentioned the episode we did with Chris Burkard.He had a quote that I remember him saying. He said something like, todaycreatives are being asked to give directions to a destination that doesn'texist. And I think he summarized really well, much of what we're talking aboutright here. I'm curious, how does that quote you? Do you feel like a hundredpercent aligned with that in your experience?

Matt Trappe (00:39:22):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I said, I thought thatepisode really, really resonated with me. A lot of times you're not given, Ithink Chris actually spoke to this, and this aligns with my experience. A lotof times you're given these expectations for a campaign or a project and whatthe brand wants out of those is very unclear. And so that's sort of thisdestination that is unknown and the creative is supposed to be the personshooting a campaign is sort of a black box that's just supposed to make somethingamazing that's going to shine. And it's difficult to be in that position whenyou're a creative because is you want some parameters, you want some goals. Youwant to know how the project's going to show up in the world, what the outlets,the channels are going to be. And a lot of those things help you to makesomething unique and make something engaging. So I think that's what he'sspeaking to there is you're sort of being asked to do something without knowingwhere you're going with it, and that's a difficult position to be in. Yeah,really speaks to, I think the need we see upstream for a little bit moredirection from brand to brand storytelling.

Cole Heilborn (00:40:46):

If that's an observation that multiple creatives have,does that not highlight an opportunity for creatives that they could step

Matt Trappe (00:40:52):

Into? I think what you see is that's where the creatorsort of influencer in economy I think is being really has been reallysuccessful. I think they've been able to weave unique stories, know wherethey're going, be authentic to themselves and do things that brands are reallytrying to speak to and trying to do themselves and why brands are trying toattach themselves within marketing campaigns to a lot of influencers and a lotof creatives. I wrote up recently on my newsletter about Jamil Curry running inthe Chipotle, the Strava Chipotle challenge down in Tempe. Did you see

Cole Heilborn (00:41:35):

The story? I think I saw the headline. I didn't read it inyour newsletter.

Matt Trappe (00:41:39):

And this is an example of just a storytelling clinic thatI think a lot of brands try to emulate what we see creators do really well. SoI'll give you the overview here. So Strava does a challenge, or Chipotle Isuppose does a Strava challenge in conjunction with Strava. And they have 25cities that they chose this year across the country, and they create a shortStrava segment. In this case, it's like a two block stretch of road that runsin front of a Chipotle store and whoever, the way a local legend works onStrava is whoever runs that particular segment the most becomes a local legendand they're the one that just runs it most frequently. So over the course ofJanuary, whoever runs this segment the most times gets a year's worth ofChipotle. So it becomes a competition between cities to see which city cancollectively run the farthest on this segment, but also within those cities,people are just running back and forth. I mean, it's a 0.2 mile section of roadand people are just going back and forth and back and forth and back and forthon this. So Jam Curry leads, air Viper running and Mountain Outpost owns LaunchRunning Magazine is really prevalent within the trail running world. He decidedto story tell this whole thing. So he ran back and forth on this segment forthe month of January. He ran 735 miles in the month of January on a 0.2 milesegment. It's just like thousands of back and forth.

(00:43:11):

But he story told the whole thing he made, I don't evenknow how many YouTube 12 or 15 YouTube episodes, he was going live on Instagramwith it. He was live on YouTube with it, he was on podcasts while he wasrunning and moving back and forth, he got injured. There was another guy he wasgoing against and they were kind of like jacking for top position. It was thiswhole thing and is it arbitrary and silly? Of course, of course it is, but itwas told so well that it just engaged the whole trail running and ultra runningworld. You can find the writeup on my substack, but the reach that he had wasamazing. He has 50,000 followers on Instagram, but as of a couple days ago, hehad almost a million views, not impression's, views across the reels that hehad posted, which is a ton.

(00:44:05):

I mean, if you look at a brand like Hoka or someone thathas over a million followers, that's typically the views that they're gettingover the course of that month. So he's punching from 50 K to over a millionfollowers. He's punching way above his weight. And for him to do that all byhimself while he was running was just an incredible feat. So I think thatstorytelling clinic was a way to one example of how to really speak toexperiences and reach an audience with an engaging story. He had the antagonist,he had obstacles, he had little sub stories, and it was just a storytellingmasterclass that was told not with some amazing amount of production value, butwith really well really good storytelling. That was very much within hischaracter, within his voice, within his personality, and that really hit

Cole Heilborn (00:45:00):

Did Chipotle, did they get involved at all with what hewas doing or did they just let him run wild?

Matt Trappe (00:45:07):

No, they let him run wild basically. Chipotle really staysa bit hands off. He mentioned that they wanted to borrow one piece that hemade, but I couldn't find it on their social media or anywhere. So I know theyapparently used it somewhere, but I couldn't find it. But no, I mean hecouldn't even park in the Chipotle lot at the restaurant to do all thisrunning. So the whole parking and he got towed, this was a whole some part ofthe story and no, they're really hands off. They had absolutely nothing to dowith the storytelling he was doing.

Cole Heilborn (00:45:39):

So, okay, this is what I wonder about. So I'm going to gointo Chipotle corporate, their hq, did they sit down and think, did they havesome unique gut feel or insight that drew the connection between Chipotle andStrava and runners and that's why this challenge arose, or was it just somehair-brained idea that just happened to work?

Matt Trappe (00:46:00):

If you are within the trail running ultra running industryand you work in that space, how much everyone loves a burrito, there areburritos at the aid stations. You know how a burrito after the race is reallygood and you can really connect the product with that audience. And so that Ithink is what they knew they could tap into. And by creating this challenge andthen just being hands off and letting people run with it, they really created aforum for people like Jamil to be creative within.

Cole Heilborn (00:46:38):

Does the ultra running community love burritos more thanjust a general outdoor community? Is there,

Matt Trappe (00:46:43):

I mean, I don't know. I think they consume more becauseyou have to be fueling so much and when you're going slower because you'regoing farther, you can stomach a burrito more than if you're running itsprinting through a 10 K. I wonder if it would work in the outdoor community abit more at large too.

Cole Heilborn (00:47:04):

Yeah, I wonder,

Matt Trappe (00:47:05):

We all have a good burrito, especially breakfast one.

Cole Heilborn (00:47:09):

I've got a lot of good burrito ideas I'll share with youat some point later.

Matt Trappe (00:47:13):

I love a good burrito story.

Cole Heilborn (00:47:16):

Fun fact. One of 'em, I was on a shoot a couple of weeksago and it gave me food poisoning and I was sick on an airplane for eight hoursand it was absolutely miserable, but the first day of the shoot rolled aroundand I was in good shape and I was to eat another burrito.

Matt Trappe (00:47:31):

So you can't get sick of burritos.

Cole Heilborn (00:47:33):

No. So we talked about some hypothetical solutions to, Iguess we haven't been as critical as I thought we would be, so I think welldone us, but let's talk about solutions. What are things that you think theindustry could be doing differently to seek after better again, whatever thatmeans.

Matt Trappe (00:47:57):

Well, I mean maybe we could try to summarize some of theones that have come up already within our conversation. Right.

Cole Heilborn (00:48:03):

Great.

Matt Trappe (00:48:04):

I mean, you can help me do that too. The one is to embedwith your audience, live the lifestyle. Don't be disconnected with youraudience such that they're just data points that you're trying to mind forinsights. Be in it yourself. Your employees should be living it very high upwithin the organization. I think that sort of lifestyle connectionauthentically within your life, your passion, that is probably point number onethat I think leases success.

Cole Heilborn (00:48:47):

Yeah. Would it be too presumptuous for point number two tobe something to the effect of don't just rely on your creative partners toexecute, but maybe give them a little space to brainstorm and give somefeedback upstream?

Matt Trappe (00:49:02):

I agree. I mean, choosing your partners is probably wherethat starts. And if they also very much know your audience and live in thatworld use, there's a lot of really smart creative photographers and filmmakers.Lean on them for insights and for their opinions and allow them upstream intothe process. A lot of times, and you could probably speak to this too, you talkto a client and they're like, oh, we don't know. We're still working on thebrief. We'll be in touch with you when it's all locked. That's always amistake. I think bring the creative in before the brief is developed. Let theminto it and take their feedback into account.

Cole Heilborn (00:49:54):

Awesome. Maybe point number three would be use a blend ofgut feelings and data to form good creative that maybe doesn't have as muchrisk as it would've.

Matt Trappe (00:50:08):

Yes. I think that kind of hits on point number one a bitbecause if you want to have that gut feeling, you have to really be embeddedinto the audience. That's where that comes from, that human intuition, I guessis what we're referring to as gut feeling. So if you have that, yes, I thinkyou weigh that as much as you weigh the data, if not more, in my opinion, frommy perspective, to make insights and make decisions.

Cole Heilborn (00:50:39):

What else?

Matt Trappe (00:50:43):

I think the other thing we talked about is the brand storyand the authenticity of what the brand means, what the brand's messaging is,and helping that to be distinct within your marketing, your campaigns, theproductions that we're being asked to execute, ensuring that is another key tosuccess. That's a little bit, I don't know, maybe more difficult. What do you,what are the campaigns that you've worked on that maybe were the most distinctand why we're that way? Pay that way to turn it around on you, but you have alot of experience too. So I want to learn from you too, Cole.

Cole Heilborn (00:51:36):

I think I've used this example a lot, but I think I bringit up. It worked well. We did a feature doc with Athletic Brewing Company. Wemade a film about some Iron Man, three Iron Man athletes. Great. And lookingback, I think we kind of got lucky choosing Iron Man as our venue, as our worldthat we told this story because there weren't a ton of stories that were beingtold in that space that were maybe being done at a level, that there was roomto grow. There was some quality that we could grow into in that world. And Ithink film, one of the reasons that it did well is because there was anappetite for that type of content in that world that maybe was a littledifferent than it would've been being done before I started saying that I knewexactly how that connected to your question, and now I'm totally spacing on

Matt Trappe (00:52:34):

Why I

Cole Heilborn (00:52:34):

Bring that up.

Matt Trappe (00:52:36):

Being distinct, how,

Cole Heilborn (00:52:38):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt Trappe (00:52:39):

Right. And in that case, it sounds like they found avertical or a world or a culture that maybe wasn't being spoken to,

Cole Heilborn (00:52:46):

But also aligned super well with who they were as a brand,right? So it was this beautiful marrying

Matt Trappe (00:52:52):

Of

Cole Heilborn (00:52:52):

An opportunity from the content perspective and from theirbrand.

Matt Trappe (00:52:56):

There was another example I would say that speaks to thattoo, is a newer brand in the running space called Mount Coast. So they'remaking Chew that have a really, it's a great foam that makes their midsolewithout getting into the details of it, and it lasts a really, really, reallylong time without breaking down and crushing out. A lot of shoes might wear outwhen they do, and so they came into the running from this angle of Road ultrarunning, which is super niche even compared to Trail Ultra running. But therewasn't anyone you were speaking to before. There wasn't any brands reallyspeaking to that audience specifically, even though it was small. And sothey've been really successful thus far. And I think that speaks to the valueof not necessarily going for the biggest audience, but going for a distinctaudience, allowing your brand to stand out and then maybe you can branch outfrom there. But that foothold, like you were talking about with Ironman, Ithink that really worked with Mota coast and the road ultra running audience.

Cole Heilborn (00:54:08):

But if you pick an audience that, I mean is a tight, wellknit community

Matt Trappe (00:54:15):

Niche,

Cole Heilborn (00:54:15):

Super niche, and if it's done well, it's, it's going tospread like wildfire. I agree.

Matt Trappe (00:54:22):

I agree. And maybe that goes back to our satisfyingexample. I mean, how many people would've told you that if you described thissatisfying lifestyle and aesthetic that really speaks to them, it probablywould've seemed like such a small audience, but once they put it out there intothe world, a lot of people saw that and said, oh, I think that's cool, and Iget that, or I relate to that. And it drew a lot. It had a lot more magnetismto it than you could have seen coming.

Cole Heilborn (00:54:50):

Well, isn't that like that expression? You only need athousand true fans.

Matt Trappe (00:54:55):

I think that's true,

Cole Heilborn (00:54:56):

And obviously the numbers are different when you'retalking about a national or an international brand, but I think it's stillthere. The truth is still there. To some degree, content doesn't need to be foreveryone. Your brand doesn't need to be for everyone. But if it's for a veryspecific group of people, that's where you want to start.

Matt Trappe (00:55:15):

Yeah, I think it's kind of a larger social mediaconversation. What is the quality versus quantity maybe from engagement and allthese engagement metrics, and if you really go with less, if you speak to lesspeople, but you speak to them more deeply, that can have as much or more powermaybe than a surface level connection with a lot more people.

Cole Heilborn (00:55:39):

But to be fair, I think I would love to tease that out anddo multiple episodes on this idea of quality versus quantity because

Matt Trappe (00:55:46):

You could,

Cole Heilborn (00:55:47):

Yeah, I think it's easy to say, I want to be the person, Iwant to say, oh, quality all the way, but I actually, I don't know if I canentirely back that up.

Matt Trappe (00:55:54):

It's like a lot of things. It isn't like one isn't goodand the other one's bad. There's balances and there's pros and cons to bothdepending on your brand, your situation, maybe the point in your life cycle,the type of product you're trying to launch, and if it's completely new productor if it's sort of an established product category, there's always situationswhere quality versus quantity one might be better than the other. So yeah,there's a lot more nuance to it than just, this one's good, this one's bad.

Cole Heilborn (00:56:23):

Are there any other points that we should summarize?

Matt Trappe (00:56:29):

That's about all that comes to mind. I think for me maybethat we talked about

Cole Heilborn (00:56:34):

Maybe one, and I guess this kind of maybe encapsulatesmany of them, but the distinction perhaps between marketing and

Matt Trappe (00:56:41):

Creative

Cole Heilborn (00:56:42):

And maybe understanding that if they are unique, maybebetter understanding creative starts with knowing, oh, maybe it isn't exactlylike marketing and maybe just having that understanding can help unlock somegreat creative potential.

Matt Trappe (00:56:56):

Yeah, I'd be interested on a feedback from people on thatdistinction. What makes a marketing person versus maybe more of a creativeperson, how do you differentiate the two? Because there's the originality, theoriginal thinking and the courage to be brave and do something different fromthat creative mindset, I think has a lot of value in a lot more situations thanwe like to see. Right. Cole,

Cole Heilborn (00:57:26):

I'll keep thinking on that. 50% of me agrees with you,fair. Another 25% wants to push back and I dunno about the other 25%.

Matt Trappe (00:57:36):

Yeah, I guess that's the point. I want to get peoplethinking about some of these things. You don't have to agree, I'm not offended,but in my mind there's a distinction there and I think I come at it from thatcreative point of view as much as marketing. So I see both sides too.

Cole Heilborn (00:57:53):

Where do you hope the industry goes? If you could wave amagic wand and every brand could become creative, whatever that means.

Matt Trappe (00:58:03):

Oh man.

Cole Heilborn (00:58:03):

What would you want to see of our industry?

Matt Trappe (00:58:06):

I mean, I think first of all, going back to the way westarted the conversation, everything's changing so quickly now that everyone'strying to figure things out. And so I hope this conversation has just helpedpeople to think about how they're approaching things. And I don't proclaim tobe right about everything, but these are some of the thoughts running throughmy head, and if anybody has any feedback, learning from each other andprolonging these conversations I think is just really valuable for us all tobecome better.

Cole Heilborn (00:58:40):

Maybe one thing to add is I guess in a world where theentire industry is just driving creatively the sea of sameness, that would be adried up sea, right? Hopefully.

Matt Trappe (00:58:52):

Theoretically, yeah. I mean, I think there's always, look,think there's a bit of a place for that predictability of you doing things thathave worked before. I just think maybe we've tilted a little bit too far inthat direction and I'd like to see a little more balance with brand new ideas.Things that if I see a brand do something and it may not work, but it wasreally different and it was a good swing. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I havea lot more respect for that brand and I'm really more excited about it. It'slike, oh, they took a swing. They tried to do something different and maybethat didn't work. But the people internally there, I think they're reallythinking the right way and there's probably something really cool coming. Sopersonally, I like to lift up those approaches.

Cole Heilborn (00:59:37):

I love it. Matt, if folks want to follow along with you,if they want to find your substack, where can they find you?

Matt Trappe (00:59:42):

Yeah, so the Substack newsletter is called a matter ofbrand, so a matter of brand.substack.com, and you can find my portfolio websiteis matt trappe.com or trappe photo.com. They both linked to the same site. Thebrand I started in running is called a True Sportif. It is a lifestyle runningbrand that really leans into the idea that running is an art and the processand the lifestyle of that more than a performance sport. And so you can findthe work that I'm doing there. That's kind of a playground for me to experimentwith a lot of the branding and storytelling ideas that I have. But I'm onInstagram a lot. Trappe photo is my handle. T-R-A-P-P-E-P-H-O-T-O can interactwith me there too.

Cole Heilborn (01:00:28):

Thanks on. Right on, Matt. Thanks for the conversation.Appreciate everybody. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Thank you for listening tothis episode of the Backcountry Marketing Podcast. Please share it. With afriend or leave us a review on Apple.

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