Fitz Cahall (00:00):

I think AI has kind of sat down on the toilet finally and is starting to take a shit on the internet to be super blunt about it. It is happening, and it's not necessarily that it's like, oh, it's creating things that are so magical that everyone's doing things. But no, if you look at it, you look at tools like Perplexity or if you look at tools like Chat GPT, they're starting to draw traffic away. I mean, even Google itself, it's creating the AI assisted search, right? What the heck? That's a crazy thing is that it's actually leading to the demise of its most potent revenue stream. It's a tricky moment where I think it's less clear of what do I do or how do I spend my money? Or where do I put my energy?

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Cole Heilborn (00:39):

Welcome to the Backcountry Marketing Podcast. I'm your host Cole Heilborn. On this podcast, you'll hear from leaders in the outdoor marketing industry discuss the gritty details of their work, as well as the latest challenges and lessons they're learning along the way. If you want to hone your craft and become a stronger marketer, then this podcast is for you. This podcast is produced by Portside Productions, an outdoor film production company based in the Pacific Northwest. If you work at a brand or agency in the outdoor industry that needs help bringing a video project to life, head over to portside pro.com and send us an email we'd love to help.

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Cole Heilborn (01:11):

Welcome to the Backcountry Marketing podcast from Portside Productions. Today I'm sitting down with Fitz Cahall. You've probably recognized Fitz's name. He's been in the industry for a long time. He's the Creative Director at Duct Tape Then Beer. He's the voice behind the Dirt Bag Diaries, and more recently, the Climbing Gold Podcast with Alex Honnold. Fitz, welcome to the show.

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Fitz Cahall (01:29):

Thanks for having me, Cole. Appreciate it.

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Cole Heilborn (01:32):

You've been on a name on the list that we've been wanting to bring to the show for a while now, and I think it's serendipitous. It's here, we're doing it. I feel like I've listened. I think most people have listened to. How many millions of people do you think have listened to your voice over the years?

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Fitz Cahall (01:46):

Oh, I don't think it's millions. I think, I don't know. That's really hard to say because audience comes and goes through time, but quite a few people. Maybe it's the millions, I don't know. Yeah, not sure. It's hard to say that exactly, but yeah.

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Cole Heilborn (02:04):

Well, I'm excited to bring you onto the show and I'm really excited to jump into our conversation. When we connected earlier, you mentioned we've been kind of going on a theme here with the podcast. We've been talking about just all of the changes and some of the turmoil and just some of the upheaval that's happening across not only the outdoor industry, but also the marketing in our conversation, what we're talking about today as the media world. And I think you said there's a lot of, you said there's a galactic upheaval in the marketing and media world right now, and I think that sentence that triggered me and I was like, oh, okay. We need to bring Fitz on and hear what he has to say. And I think no better person to talk to than someone. How long have you been in the media world? How long have you been doing this?

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Fitz Cahall (02:47):

It's been my entire career, essentially. Yeah, for the most part. I mean, from a standpoint of, I would say this is the third time there's been a really big shift, or we're the middle of shift, and the first one happened right when I came out of school in 2001, and that was sort of the first dotcom bust, and that was a crazy moment where there were all these new, especially I was in Seattle, so there was people leaving school to go take a job in marketing. They'd be in the communications department and go out there, and I was getting our job offers to leave school basically at that stage. And then it all just fell apart and I wanted to work in journalism, and all of a sudden I found myself competing with people that had 10 years of experience for entry level jobs because there was a deep level of, it was the first big downturn in print journalism.

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(03:45):

And then, yeah, I went through it again in the 2007, 2008 era where with the Great recession, but there was also just this giant shift of the internet was coming at that stage. I mean, obviously it had already been there and it was happening, but this was the moment where I think people's consumption really switched. And I was a great beneficiary of that moment of change and upheaval where I just was like, I'm psyched on this. For me, I was working for magazines and in kind of print, and I was like, I didn't quite make it in that world. I was right on that cusp, and if it had continued the way it was, I would've ended up more of in the print space. But I unfortunately, fortunately, got cut out and just was able to kind follow through on some of the ideas I had about what would happen online, and that's what I did. Yeah.

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Cole Heilborn (04:42):

And you think we're in this third upheaval now for, can you kind of give us an opening statement? You used the word galactic upheaval.

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Fitz Cahall (04:48):

Oh

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Cole Heilborn (04:48):

Yeah. Why do you think justify that for

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Fitz Cahall (04:51):

Me? Oh, yeah, justify. Well, I mean, I think it's good to step back and think about our own habits. Sometimes when we think about big, big trends, it's like, what's happening with you? How are you participating? How are you showing up? Are you using the internet? It's a television, or are you using the internet? It's a library. And those shifts happen over time right now, and I think what's going on right now is that one, as much as people want to say it, there's definitely an economic downturn in marketing or in media in those two spaces. Big agencies like Wyden and Kennedy are laying people off. This is happening across many different industries, but it's impacting media and marketing significantly, I would say right now. And that's always going to happen. There's always going to be downturns, but there's something about this one where it just feels a little less clear about how it's going to come out of it and what it's going to be.

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(05:53):

And there's obviously people that will preach the evangelism of ai, but the reality is that more and more audiences have become fractured. Where this is happening is on a deep, deep level, they've talked about this for a lot of years, but I think right now what we're seeing is everyone has this very nuanced interest and then it's being catered to them by algorithms. And we go from there. And I mean, that's why I think if you think about it, what's the last time there was something like a Game of Thrones. There's a lot of great TV out there right now. There's a lot of really cool series, but when's the last time that there was a Stranger Things moment where half the country tuned into something like that? And that hasn't happened in a while. And if you take a step back and you think about that, the same is true for what's happening on social media too.

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(06:48):

And so this is impacting kind of every different level is that on one level, whether you are an influencer, whether you are kind of a mid-level media outlet that caters to stuff online or whether you're a big rever is trying to compete against Netflix, this is a super difficult moment in time because audiences are spread out. It's hard to create something that captures so many people's attention. And then on top of it, it's like, I think AI has kind of sat down on the toilet finally, and it's starting to take a shit on the internet to be super blunt about it. It is happening. And it's not necessarily that it's like, oh, it's creating things that are so magical that everyone's doing things. But no, if you look at it at tools like Perplexity or if you look at tools like Chat, GBT, they're starting to draw traffic away.

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(07:41):

I mean, even Google itself, it's creating the AI assisted search, and that actually is hurting its own advertising business. And so what the heck, that's a crazy thing is that it's actually leading to the demise of its most potent revenue stream right there because it's drawing traffic away from people that were hosting ads that were fed, fed to a bite by Google. And that's kind of crazy. So if you look at that, there's this big level of upheaval on a lot of different sides, and it's harder for creatives to know what to do, and it's harder for people that want to connect to audiences and customers. So it is, it's a tricky moment where I think it's less clear of what do I do or how do I spend my money? Or where do I put my energy? I think it's a trickier moment in time than I've personally seen actually out of the three moments of big transitions

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Cole Heilborn (08:46):

And in those three transitions outside of ai, is the main change that you've seen through that, just the hyper silo compartmentalization of people, the fractured audiences, is that one of the bigger changes that you've seen?

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Fitz Cahall (09:01):

Well, there's a couple of things that's happened. Some of the, I mean, one, there was the way that systems work, it's the other day NPR was reporting that the Washington Post has lost 50% of its traffic since 2020, which is kind of mind boggling. That's a crazy thing. And even if you look at something, there's reports about some of the sort of more right winging outlets like Breitbart News and the Washington Post, Breitbart, they really relied on Facebook. They relied on that algorithm of people sharing and getting angry with each other. And then basically that algorithm's changed. People are also like, I can't handle this more. We're becoming savvier maybe as humans, hopefully that maybe we realize we really shouldn't be battling with each other all the time online. And what that's ended up with is this giant loss of audience for these people, for these outlets.

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(10:04):

And obviously there's been some big name, you think about vice, you think about all these different things. There's been some big companies that have gone under, and part of it's probably a statement on how those business models were created. They were sort of free where it was like, this is free. It's supposed to go viral. Realistically, some articles provided most of the web traffic for them, and then there was just other stuff to keep regular subscribers or regular people paying attention, but they were aiming for that sort of viral moment. And some of that's sort of gone away on a lot of levels.

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(10:44):

Then I think on the other side, there's a side of it where it's like we're kind of getting used to TikTok where someone will make a video, gets 25 million views in two days. You're like, wow, that's incredible. But then if you're a creator that drops off a cliff, good creators are kind of able to replicate it, but they don't do that every day. And how is that sustainable, that model, if you're a creative and you're like, okay, I am putting all my money on black, spinning the wheel and seeing what comes up, that's not good for creatives, that's not good for people that want to support creatives. Frankly, it's not that awesome for people that want to build community. So does that answer the question?

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Cole Heilborn (11:26):

Well, yeah, it sounds like people are just confused. Is that a fair statement creators brand side? You and I are like, is everyone just the chips are up in the air and we're just waiting for them to fall, and in the meantime we're all just trying to pick our way through the mess?

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Fitz Cahall (11:42):

I don't know. I mean, I think there's, some people look at this and because anytime there's sort of confusion and chaos, there's opportunity. So I think there's some people that are charting courses that are like, okay, what am I doing and what am I trying to do? And I think for me, that's been, to me, I've been, the answer doesn't, it's weird. It's both on a business and on an emotional level. And it's funny to think of those two things actually like aligning. But what I'm banking on the way I'm going is that I don't believe more is more. I don't think that that's the solution. I don't think that just it's to do that. It's not sustainable. It's not on a personal level, it's not sustainable for teams. It's not really sustainable from a budget standpoint. And it's like you might game the system for a little bit, you might be able to do that, but ultimately it's a pretty hollow endeavor when you're always just thinking about more. And I think for me, what I'm trying to think about is deeper is I'm trying to figure out ways to do that where I'm like, Hey, I might be willing to give up some audience to have a deeper and arguably better connection with more people. Does that make sense? I'll give up volume for quality. And

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(13:10):

That's what I think for me, that's what I've sort of charted with the things we're doing is I'm like, that's okay. It's okay if this doesn't reach a million people. It's okay if it doesn't even reach a hundred thousand people because I think some of that is just BS anyway, right? It's glancing and what I'm trying to do are things that obviously I would like numbers, I'd more reach and more deeper connections. But I think the way through that is through quality, through thoughtfulness, through caring, through empathy and curiosity. And I know that sounds sort of woowoo for talking about business, but that's the path I'm charting right now. And I think that I see other people trying really cool things and going for it. It's not a bad time to do that, but it doesn't feel as clear to me as other chapters have.

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Cole Heilborn (14:10):

Why do you think that is?

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Fitz Cahall (14:11):

I think that the side of it is that the amount of volume, the amount of noise, and I makes it hard to break through sometimes, frankly. I mean, that was a gift of when I started doing what I was doing is that there wasn't that much out there. It was like the dirt bag dairies when I started. It was probably in the first thousand podcasts. And there are millions and millions of podcasts now. And it's not to say that you can't break through with a cool podcast. Now that's possible, but the path to that is very different. It's way more sophisticated and frankly put, it takes more money than it used to. Yeah. And then I think that's an interesting thing is that because things take more money, that often maybe means there's an investor behind it or there's some level of that and then all of a sudden what that does or how that allows you to create or how that allows you to, the sort of timeframe you have to build something is different. And I'm not saying that's a bad way to go, but that's just a reality on that whole front.

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Cole Heilborn (15:24):

So I'm going to try to connect a couple dots here and lemme know if this makes sense. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. So there's obviously been a massive increase in the amount of content and stuff out there in the internet to consume. It seems like there's a correlation between the amount of volume that there is and the silo of channels, the silo of people. There's millions of podcasts now, and if you want to stand out, you now have to create a show that's theoretically super niche, very targeted to a specific audience to kind of take a slice out of that total volume. And I'm wondering, is it a chicken or the egg situation? Are we creating more and more content to stand out by choosing a very niche audience like this podcast? And is that contributing to the overall problem? Maybe it's not a problem, but the overall phenomenon of mass audiences turning into niche audiences,

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Fitz Cahall (16:15):

Right. That's a really good question. I mean, sometimes I look at things and I'm like, that is so niche. I'm like, I couldn't handle that. I couldn't handle being the creator of that. And obviously I do something that's fairly niche in terms of I make stuff for people that are rooted in the outdoors that are trying to have connections to that, that are trying to have connections to this wonderful community that is out there. And that to me feels broad enough. And if anything, it's funny because my instinct of the things that I might be creating in the future, I would be looking for broader. I would be looking for connections between bigger groups where it's like we're thinking about this more thematically about what binds us as humans or what are the sort of what's analogous between these different niches and try to build that way.

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(17:15):

Frankly, if I were to go back and be launch a new show, I'd be thinking about those. I'd be thinking about how I can have a broader set of interests and diversity out there, but having it rooted in a really core principle that many people share across many different places in our society and culture. So I know, does it answer your question about which came first, the chicken or the egg and Yeah, you're right. I mean the niche is a really good thing. And I think that there's this great book I think called Learning How to Ask by Amanda Palmer, who was this singer musician in a group called The Dresden Dolls, which was kind of goth folk punk kind of weird thing. She wrote a great book and it's for all creatives, and it's basically just this idea of asking and in it, I remember she had this line where it's like, to make a living doing this, you only need a thousand people.

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(18:28):

And that I was like, really? That's an interesting thing. At some point when I came across this book and then I thought about it and I thought about how sometimes the casinos out in the middle of nowhere, they'll be like, I don't know, sticks is playing or something that's from a different era that didn't have its hall of notes moment or even journey or something like that. It's something that's leftover, but there's enough people out there that still can support this band and people can still make a living even though they're nowhere near charting and they're not doing anything like that and it's because they have their small powerful thing. So I think that that's a good example. I know it's like we don't want to be an aging sort of rock band from the 1980s probably, but that's acceptable too.

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(19:26):

Yeah. So I guess I worry less about that. I don't see that such as an issue of being like, oh, I care a lot about something. I want to talk about it. It's just the reality is that there's going to be fewer number of people that do that, and people will care insanely about, they care so much about such tiny details out there at certain points in their life, and that's up to them. The bigger thing is, I think the more important thing that people should think about is how they're consuming. Because I think a lot of people would say, Hey, big say, let's take local news. Let's take the Seattle Times or even The Washington Post, something like that. It's probably good that that exists. It's good that there's journalists out there that are doing this work and doing really good reporting. One of the things I subscribe to is the Atlantic magazine.

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(20:23):

I really appreciate it. It's super in-depth reporting. It's sort of the sort of antithesis of what people say is people's attention span there. And it's like they give me me things that are going to take me half an hour to read or an hour to read maybe even. And that's something I support. And so as a consumer, and I would also say to the people that are investing in advocacy, you have to support the things you think should be there because they will go away if you don't, and you can go spend money or spend your time on a meta product or on a TikTok product. And I'm not throwing shade on that. There's great things on there, but if you're just sort of doing this and you're just waiting for the next dumb ass dopamine hit to get you, that's jacked.

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(21:12):

And if you're supporting that, that's messed up because that's what we're going to end up with. We're going to end up with a phone that's a modern version of the cigarette that we're all sitting there twiddling or holding in our hands. And to sort of sit there and say that is that we do, I think as people that support creative endeavors, that support community, and then also as consumers of creative endeavors and community, we have to get behind the things that we think should be there. And that means actually giving your eyeballs to it or supporting a Patreon or doing a substack or just being like, I'm not going to rip off someone else's password on this. I'm actually going to use it. And there's that level on the consumer side and then to the brand on the brand or the marketing side is like, you do not want there to be just meta and TikTok in this world that will not be good for you, that will not be good things for you as those monopolies tighten it. It's like that's just not a good thing. So just think about how you're spending your money, how you're using, how you're engaging, who you're supporting and how you're building community, I think is a vital question if you're on the brand side right now to ask.

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Cole Heilborn (22:36):

I so I love your vision. It sounds optimistic, but I just,

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Fitz Cahall (22:40):

It's sort of optimistic. Sorry, should I dial it down? I am trying to make sure I don't seem too doom and gloom. I'm a little bit optimistic, but I'm also pretty damn pessimistic too.

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Cole Heilborn (22:52):

Well, and I think I kind of am too. And I wonder, has the population at large, have we not been trapped by the metas and haven't we been programmed enough by the dopamine hits in our brain that just keeps scrolling? Can we really break out of it? And I wonder too, you're someone that creates media, so therefore you think about this stuff. Does the average person think about the content that they're consuming, where they're getting it and doing so how, who they're supporting?

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Fitz Cahall (23:24):

Yeah, well think about it. That's a great question. Some people do, some people don't. But what I think what would be better is if more people did, and I'm going to use another example. We were talking about like, oh, how do you support the things right now in Seattle, there's a lot of our city's a lot. It's changed a lot. It's gone through a pandemic. And for some of the food places, it's been interesting. There's been some sort of classic big fan favorites that are just closing. You are kind of like, really? That's closing? That's an institution. And it's just because people sort of forgot. And then you think about, well, when was the last time I was there? And you're like, the last time was there was six years ago or five years ago because my habits changed and I'm doing something different, et cetera, et cetera. And you're like, well, I didn't go to that place even though I thought I was cool. And that's an interesting thing is like, well, there's a level of it of if you think something's cool, you should probably go there. Or if you think someone's doing a cool thing, you should probably support that. And that said, so we're talking about that. That's sort of analogy of that's happening with media outlets.

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(24:44):

It's funny, if you think about, I'm reading another Michael Pollan book, but there's the Omnivores Dilemma, which is a very famous book about the nature of food. And it was written probably 20 years ago, I think it was. And that book was super impactful for a lot of people where they started to think way more about what they were eating, what they were putting in their bodies. They were like, should I be eating the impact to me? What's the impact to the planet? Or do I need to be an all vegetarian side? What's the impact? There was this great sort of discourse on different types of ways that people can eat and those impacts that they have on farmers and planet and all that stuff and on us, right, on health. And that was something that I think a, some people thought about 15, 20 years later, way more people think about that now than they did 20 years ago.

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(25:49):

I mean, on a crazy level in terms of how we think about organic food, all that, that's almost sort of just, we don't even think about it half the time anymore. And so what I'd say is it's possible to think about the same way of what we're consuming mentally, emotionally, what's like a built, built in just sort of the equivalent of the McDonald's french fry where our pleasure centers light up and you're like, but that's not good in the long run. A little bit's fine, but not good in the long run. What's the equivalent of that online or our deeper things better for us? Things that take more time, that make us think that build empathy, is that better? And so I think that there is a moment where a lot of us could take a second and really reexamine the relationship we have with how we consume, and one those on ourselves, on our emotional being, the impacts of that on our community.

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(26:51):

And even on a crazy level, the impacts of that on the environment. It's wild. I don't know, you're in Washington state too, but I don't know if you caught this, but I, we've been having a lot of push and I think this year was the year that I thought that everyone thought that maybe we would get to all renewables and they had to sort of reexamine that and be like, we can't do it. And a large part of that was because of the data centers that are powering AI things and that request that has grown by 20%. So there's just this new strain on the grid that's actually happening how we all are freaking using our phones. That's wild. That's a wild thing. And so I think that there is a moment where we can take a step back and think about it of being like, cool, if we approach this the same way we think about how we eat or how we take care of our health, would we be doing a better job of being consumers, being a community supporting things? And I don't know, maybe there's room for optimism in that. And I think that depends on what you think of people. I think that sort of depends on whether you're optimistic about people or not.

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Cole Heilborn (28:10):

Do you think that we're evaluating our consumption as a whole? Are we becoming more conscious of our individual consumption of everything, of food, of energy, of media? Is that a trend

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Fitz Cahall (28:24):

That

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Cole Heilborn (28:25):

We're seeing? Is that a habit that we're seeing or I'm not reaching too far.

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Fitz Cahall (28:28):

I feel like you're reaching too far. I'll be blunt. I mean, I think that it's so hard. I feel like I sound like someone who works in self-help or something like that right now. But on a level, I think that's maybe a bit much. I think if I had to take a step back, but I do think everyone's journey is different. Everyone's level of awareness and ability to see how they fit into a world and into a community is different. I think it's always a better thing when you ask those questions of yourself in any regard of what role am I playing here versus just worrying about what meeting you have tomorrow. And you can't do that all the time, that's ridiculous. We'd get nothing done. We'd have a tough time supporting our families, but it's worth taking a moment and thinking about what choices am I making and how do these choices ladder out into the world and into my own happiness?

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(29:28):

And whether you're doing that with food or whether you're doing that with your media consumption, whether you're doing with that, when you're thinking about how you're doing your ad spend, it's like a worthy thing to go through, even if you make the opposite choice and you are like, well, I can't make that choice right now, but ideally I would be making some other choice. That's a worthy process to go through to think about what impact does this have, what goes away? What benefits, who benefits, who loses, who maybe gets left out in the cold? And I think that that's a great question to ask, especially when you're trying to grow something, which I think we're all trying to, I think, grow connections to the natural world, to each other, to the outdoor community, to things that cause to create joy in life. I think that anyone on your podcast would say, yeah, that's actually probably what I'm in the business of doing. So I think we think about that. We think about that in, we've done a way better job thinking about that in the last 10 years about how we're inviting people that don't look like the two of us into our community. How do we support those projects? How do we do that? And we've done a better job. That work needs to keep going, obviously. But that's a great example where somebody sat down and thought, who's being left out of this? How do I change that? What do I do?

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(30:53):

And that's a byproduct of that. It's also a byproduct of people raising their hands and being like, Hey, you should support this, right, too. It's like same dynamic. So I don't mean to say it's all there, but it is a byproduct of people sitting down and having real conversations about When I spend my money this way, or when I use my time this way, what gets supported and what doesn't and does that align with my values? And hopefully they do

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Cole Heilborn (31:22):

From the, I'm flipping the script a little bit here.

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Fitz Cahall (31:25):

Go for it.

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Cole Heilborn (31:26):

Changing gears, whatever metaphor we want to use from the brand side. There's so many options out there. There's so many ways to spend money, there's so many ways to engage, to connect, whatever. I mean, do you envy, do you wish you were in-house at a brand somewhere? Do you wish you were a marketer somewhere with all of these options? Or do you enjoy the seat you're in these days?

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Fitz Cahall (31:48):

Oh, that's, well, that's a really personal question and a really good one. What I do right now feels difficult. It's felt difficult even when it's been going really well. I like difficult things. This has been the journey that I've taken has I got to do. It's like my partner and my life partner is my co-owner of my business. I've got incredible crew, so it would be hard for me to ever think that differently. And oddly enough too, the way that it's all the way cookie crumbled. I mean, aside from odd jobs and being a climbing guide and doing kind of manual labor and stuff like that, I've never had a boss technically, which is kind of wild to think about. I mean, a few journalism jobs at the beginning I did, but so it's sort hard for me to imagine that. And while I learned a lot about that and I know what people go through internally, I'm not sure that's where I was.

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(32:48):

I think if I were, there's a company that I work with called the Bull Ring Project, which has climbing gyms, climbing gyms across country. And that's a really cool thing is that I like that sort of side of it. That's a cool opportunity. Their goal is to grow the sport, right? It's cool. It's there. They're not going to, that goal is their buildings are only so big. You can only, there's fire codes, right? It's not like the TikTok model doesn't apply to the bouldering project on a level, and it's more analog in that way. And you have to think about that. They have to make this product that's great, and it has to be great from a design level of how they build the buildings to how they create the Boulder problems, to how they engage with their community. And it's crazy if they do all these sort of very, we would call it the Amish way here, we make a joke about that. It's very old school in terms of being like there's things it just takes, it's less performance marketing and more deep connection and thoughtful design. And so projects that might be appealing to me where I would be interested in something like that where it's like my goal is not to sell 3 million widgets. I don't mean to crap on Stanley and the Stanley town, but that to me is just, I just have no interest in that and I don't know how to say it other than that,

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(34:41):

I have no interest in that. So I think it's like, it's fine if you do. I don't mean to crap on anyone, and it's jobs to sell jackets, and there's nothing wrong with that. And I support that. And I've been there, and I've actually really appreciated the education I've gotten and working with brands through the years and some of the brand work I've done in terms of what goes into making a jacket and how do you do it, how do you do it better? I love that process. But to me, I'm less interested. I have empathy for people right now that are working there because they're probably working with reduced budgets right now a little bit. And they're like, oh God, how do I do this? What's the right tactic? I've got to support product right now, and I've sort of got to take care of the community.

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(35:26):

I've got to follow through on some of the DEI stuff I've done. That's a tricky situation to be in. And I think what I'd say is just try go through that process of being like, well, here's what it is. This is what I got. This is how I think I should spend it. I've got to spend it in a way that makes sure that my company keeps going, that I'm successful on the role that marketing ultimately does, but how's it aligning with my values and who's winning and who's losing here? And is there a way to potentially do it better so that the people that I would prefer to see succeed are succeeding versus something like meta? And that's a fair process to go through, and that's like, that's an important thing to do. So I guess I don't envy that. That's a tough call to make. I don't have to do that right now, but there's a way to do it. And I would just say be thoughtful about it.

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Cole Heilborn (36:34):

Over the weekend, I was in Telluride at the Mountain Film Festival and it brought up so many thoughts and ideas, especially on the drive home. I had a lot of hours to think, and I had this idea, I had this question, and I want to run it by you. If you could wave a magic wand and change anything about the dynamics of marketing or the dynamics of how a marketing department works, who it reports to, who it's beholden to, if you could change anything about this department, what would you want to change or what value system would you want to change? Or it doesn't have to be, it could be high level, it could be floor level.

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Fitz Cahall (37:18):

That's a really thoughtful question. Sorry for taking you, it. Take me a second to do this. I just want to come up with a thought because it's a thoughtful question. I want to come up with a thoughtful answer, and I just hadn't, I've never thought of that. I've never even really thought of that as an something that's actionable.

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Cole Heilborn (37:34):

It might not be an option.

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Fitz Cahall (37:36):

Yeah, no, I think it's interesting because you're like, well, I might start with capitalism. There's that side. I go to the high level, but I think I would be like, let's bring it down a notch. And to think about that. And I think that one thing I think would be good for brand teams and for marketing teams to do is to take, for me, I studied journalism because I was like, oh, if I do this, I get to learn something new every single day of my life. If I take this lens and I'm doing it, I thought I'd be covering politics. That's where my start was, was like, I'm interested in this. I want to learn about it. I remember one of my first jobs was covering state politics down in Olympia, and I realized, oh, it's about the money. And I got all excited it as a 3-year-old learning about the state budget, I was like, nerd, right?

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(38:39):

Full nerd. But I was learning about something. It's like, I think what I would say is if I had to wave a magic wand and do that is that maybe some of the marketing departments, while they relied on tools and proven tactics, I would always make a place for curiosity in it. And I would always make a place for learning and not just about more performance marketing tools or better SEO, I would be curious about the world, the people that inhabit the community you rely on and support. And I would be just, I would just be curious. And that's how I think if I were to say, if I were in charge, if I were a brand leader on a level, I'd be like, let's figure out how to integrate some of that into what we do, because I think that that leads to great places.

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(39:41):

And I think that making room to have conversations without people outside of your organization with different perspectives, taking that time versus just, it's just a huge thing. And it's not easy. It's hard. I have to work on that all the time of being like, oh, I'm seeking out different perspectives and different opinions on things. It's not small, but I think that that's led to, whether it's through reading or whether it's through meeting new people or going to things that are sort of way outside my normal realm of groups I'd be in and expose to different ideas. It's rewarding. So I think if that's the magic wand tool, I would be like, and it's actionable. That's actually an actionable thing that people can do versus, wow, I wish we didn't have to sell jackets. That's never going to happen. That's the function of marketing. What does it go? The tail can't wag the dog. So that's the reality. So that said is like, what would be better? It would be better if more people were curious, because I think that that ultimately will lead to better outcomes for the company you work for. And it's a way where you can be quite human, quite engaged, and we're not worried about the dog or the tail wagging at that stage because maybe it allows us to find better purpose and better meaning in our work we do too. So yeah. Interesting.

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Cole Heilborn (41:18):

Something I think about a lot.

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Fitz Cahall (41:19):

What would you do? What would you do?

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Cole Heilborn (41:22):

I don't know. I feel like my thoughts, I haven't fully figured out what I'm thinking, if that makes sense. If that makes any sense. Yeah, it does. I went to Mountain Film with the intention of this podcast hasn't come out yet, but I went there and I wanted to interview some amazing filmmakers and some amazing folks from the brand side to just talk about, I love storytelling and I love getting to tell stories. And I'm always just so curious about the role that storytelling has in marketing and where it fits and the value. And I think everyone on this show, every marketer talks about the value of storytelling. I think that's a default. But then when it actually comes down to making something and telling a story and then deploying it and amplifying it into this world, it's complicated and it's messy. And the ROI is elusive, and there's so many questions about something that seems to be such an ingrained truth.

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Fitz Cahall (42:24):

I'll counter that and I'll be like, is the ROI elusive? If you were to take one step back and let's take, instead of being like, okay, here's my marketing campaign, and then turn, let's be curious. Let's take one step back or maybe 10 and let's zoom out. Let's think about the brands that are the best at stories. Nike, right? Yeah, Patagonia, how's that going? But I think, what else? Apple?

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(42:58):

No, you zoom out preaching and you're like, what's the OI of having a story? What's the ROI of having an understanding your brand story, and what's the ROI of having ability to attract talent through a story? And you're like, when you take that step backwards and you zoom out on that level versus your fricking goddamn meta campaign you're running right now, you see a really different picture. You see a really different picture. And I think that the coolest thing is when somebody actually, the light bulb goes on and it's just like, oh, it's not just that I can support these cool stories that are in my universe, it's that I can become a story that the brand can actually take action. It can do things. It can act like a human. And when you give that brand, that agency, which is a tricky thing to do, it becomes powerful. And so on that level, yes, are, I mean, there's other brands that take different tactics that are obviously incredible companies where they're much more tactical. They're the science people, or they take a sort of war approach where we're like, we're going to dominate the other companies. They do it that way, right?

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(44:18):

That's an approach too. But I think mean, I've heard it said it's like that there's science and there's the battle approach and then their story and that those are the three major ways you build a brand. And most people, when they think of brand, they're thinking of the story driven side of the whole thing. And yeah, I don't know, because I hear that same thing. You just thing be like, well, what's the ROI on that? And you're like, well, maybe the better question is how am I supporting it? If I'm working on this big story, am I bringing all the right tools? Have I saved the right amount of money to support it with events? Have I done all this is like story's proven? I think at this stage we can all say that story's proven. And if you don't, I don't think you're a history. I don't think you're actually a student of what's happening in branding in the last a hundred

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Cole Heilborn (45:13):

Years. I don't disagree on the front lines. I feel like I hear those questions and I wanted to try to find an answer to that.

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(45:22):

And so my thought was like, well, what prompted this question, this original question of what would you want to change about the marketing department? What I walked away from all those conversations with from the festival was like, maybe it's less about the power of storytelling and the value of it, and maybe it's more about maybe we need to change how we think about storytelling and how it integrates with marketing. Maybe it's a department level change. It's a change in the values of the business. It's a change in leadership, it's a change in the KPIs, the lack of KPIs that we're looking for.

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Fitz Cahall (45:59):

I don't even know what kpi I means, I feel so embarrassed saying that I am just like, I forget. I can look it up. I've looked it up before, but I'm like, God damn dude.

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Cole Heilborn (46:08):

It's like the one performance marketing phrase. I know. A key performance indicator.

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Fitz Cahall (46:12):

Okay.

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Cole Heilborn (46:13):

Yeah. I

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Fitz Cahall (46:15):

Mean, I know some of 'em, but I don't know.

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Cole Heilborn (46:19):

Yeah,

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Fitz Cahall (46:20):

I know I sound like a dinosaur. I say that,

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Cole Heilborn (46:22):

But I

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Fitz Cahall (46:23):

Honestly don't care.

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Cole Heilborn (46:26):

But I think that's what I walked away with was like, I wonder if, I don't know. That's what prompted the question. That's how I arrived there.

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Fitz Cahall (46:34):

Yes. Well, I think that's a worthy question to ask. And it, it's good. And I think that too, to the point of the disruptive moment, circling back to that beginning of this conversation where it's like one, it's disruptive. The outdoor industry's got a hangover. Let's just all be honest, it partied a little too hard, got a little crazy. Some of that was inflicted, self inflicted. Some of that was inflicted by crazy events, but that's happened. And then there's this giant sort of upheaval in media right now. And so when you circle back to that as being like, cool, it's a great moment. I mean, talk about opportunities of thinking about that, of when things are chaotic, it's an opportunity. So maybe there's less money to spend. So maybe it's thinking about, well, instead of just unloading that right now in a certain way, or maybe you have to unload it in a certain way right now, maybe it's the time to start thinking about what you're going to do five years from now when it's gotten a little bit more normal.

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(47:34):

What are you going to tackle or three years or two years ago? And instead of just being like, what's happening in spring of next thing with this jacket line? Think about the bigger picture, the bigger stories that you need to tell. Maybe there's an opportunity to do that and to set yourself up for that next chapter where it's a little less chaotic, it's a little less clear. And yeah, right now you don't know whether that money is going to be going to, I don't know, do an awesome project with a YouTube creator, or you don't know whether that money is going to be sponsoring an awesome, doing incredible work. You just don't know where that money's going to be going. But if you think about where you want to, if you think about that brand story, you're going to be in such a better position a few years from now, then you would, if you just sort of were like, I'm just going from the next meta campaign or the next, how's this performing, blah, blah, blah, all that you have to do that, it's there. But if you can take and carve out a moment of your time to think about with intention, that bigger thing, that's how you win in moments of disruption in my mind.

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Cole Heilborn (48:52):

Yeah. So I mean, is that the key? If you had to leave folks with kind of a takeaway, how to ride this storm out, is it take the time to think about where you want to be in two years from now and then start there? Is that what you'd recommend? Are there any other takeaways for folks who are caught in the middle of all of this mess and trying to figure out how to make it through?

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Fitz Cahall (49:15):

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it's a lot of what we've talked about, and I really appreciate this conversation. I feel like it's actually sharpened my thinking a little bit right now, which is I appreciate, but I do, I mean, I think if I had to have some takeaways is start thinking about the future. It's like, yeah, obviously we're in a little bit of a tough call right here, but if you can't work with somebody now, how are you setting up the relationship? So they want to work with you two years from now so that you still have that or that you let them know is the way to respond to somebody you've worked with for a long time to just ghost them when they email you because you don't have money? Probably not. So I would say, take a moment to think about two years from now or five years from now, where do you want to be?

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(50:12):

And if you haven't sort of thought about those values or you haven't thought about that bigger brand story, now is a really good time to do that because if you're doing that two years from now when there is money or you have more resources to work with, you're not going to spend it in the right way. You're not going to do that. It's like then you'll be doing the work then and then you're behind. So yeah, I think it is. It's just thinking about that, take a moment, be like, take a second to adjust, take a section to write that own story for yourself, and even maybe put it down on paper is like, cool, five years now, this is what I want this to look like. This is what I want to be supporting. This is my vision for it. And that gives you a way better roadmap, whether you're doing it on a tactical level of where would my marketing budget, what would my ideal marketing budget be and where's it going to go and how am I going to do it?

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(51:05):

What am I support? How am I making sure that I'm supporting my internal side of my things? How am I supporting my community? How am I building the whole bigger thing? And those are the questions I would be asking myself, even if I can't do them right now. Because to take a moment when it'll be too busy tactically, if it turns back on, people are going to be like, oh, man. And that's when people make bad decisions with their money. That's when people maybe green light an awesome film, but then can't figure out how to support it. They fail. They're moving so damn quick. They forgot to write the marketing plan for that film to capitalize on the story that they've supported. So I think that that's a great moment of being able to do that is like, Hey, if there's a little more space, just imagine yourself five years from now and what would you want? And I think a plan, an understanding of who you are, who your brand is, what you value, and then I think it becomes a lot easier to move towards those values, those shared values that you have with your customers.

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Cole Heilborn (52:13):

Well, if we wrap it up there fits, where can folks find you? Where can people go and support you and your various endeavors?

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Fitz Cahall (52:21):

Well, I mean, we've got a couple of shows. We've got the Dirt Bag Diaries, we've got Climbing Gold, and those are in full Swing, and they're incredible. And then the work we do like Duct Tape and Beer, it's funny, this is some of the work we do is talking about these various things, brand narratives, values, how do you turn your company into an actual story? How do you take action? That's been some of my favorite projects. Some of the work I've done through the years is actually some of that work. So we're on Instagram, we're on the web, we're out there. Yeah, we're doing our thing. You can find us.

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Cole Heilborn (52:55):

I always feel like if it's a redundant question to ask, but it feels wrong to not ask

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Fitz Cahall (52:59):

It

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Cole Heilborn (53:00):

Because I'm like, well, maybe someone only accepts snail mail. I don't know.

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Fitz Cahall (53:03):

Dude, I did, hang on one second. I can't remember that I told you, but we wrote a book too this year, and so people actually may be able to find me in person, which is rare because I'm a little bit of a hermit. And we'll be doing some live events later this year and going through. And so I'll be out in the community supporting the book. And the book launch is 30 stories, like some of our favorite stories from the diaries over 17 years, and it's cool. So yeah, I'll kind of be around

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Cole Heilborn (53:34):

Where can people find the event venues, the dates

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Fitz Cahall (53:37):

That I don't know yet because we haven't crossed that river yet, but we will be doing some things in Seattle, and I imagine we'll be doing some things. I know we'll be doing an event out in Duluth and probably in Minneapolis out in October, and we may do some East Coast stuff in Denver and Seattle, but if you follow along on Instagram or on any of the socials, that's a really good way to keep up to date on that. So yeah. Awesome. Excited for that.

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Cole Heilborn (54:06):

Cool. Well, Fitz, thank you again. Hope you have a great rest of your day and appreciate the conversation.

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Fitz Cahall (54:11):

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Cole. Bye.

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Cole Heilborn (54:14):

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Backcountry Marketing Podcast. Please share it with a friend or leave us a review on Apple.

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