Kevin Knutson (00:00):

Yeah. Do these numbers actually reflect success of engagement or do these numbers that we're chasing? These trends artificially feel like we're doing something successful when, in reality is distracting us from capturing an authentic audience, authentic success, because we are drifting away from like meaningful interactions, meaningful engagements with our core audience because we have chased a cheaper potential audience. Or a, a numbers game.

Cole Heilborn (00:30):

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 wanna 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. Welcome to the Backcountry Marketing podcast from Port Side Productions. Today I'm sitting down with Kevin Knutson. He's a creative and art director, a street artist who's been in the outdoor industry for the last 20 years. Kevin, you've had some jobs at REI, Filson currently, and most recently, Eddie Bauer. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Kevin Knutson (01:23):

It's good to be here. Thank you, Cole.

Cole Heilborn (01:25):

Yeah, it's great to have you. You, when we first connected you, you gave me this question, uh, that you posed and you said, why do we need to tell emotional content when the algorithm says dance? And that's, that's kinda what we're gonna be diving into today. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about the invisible audience, uh, that, that may exist or may not exist, uh, and, and the balance between growth and brand marketing. So, Kevin, thanks again. Uh, can you tell me a little bit about why, why is this a question that you think about?

Kevin Knutson (01:56):

Yeah, absolutely. I, uh, I think about it quite a bit actually because, um, when we think about content marketing, we have to think about a lot of different platforms. Um, you know, that's usually the first question that comes up when we receive, uh, an ask to make any sort of content is where does it go? And that dictates a lot of, uh, a lot of flavor about, you know, what do we create conceptually or even technically, uh, what are we creating? And when we think about like Instagram or TikTok or YouTube or, uh, website blogs, um, you know, anything, we start to think about who the audience is. And when we kind of look about the past few years, the past few decades even, um, that audience is very, very interesting and can kind of start to feel invisible in a lot of ways when you start to think about what success looks like.

(03:01):

Um, because, uh, for brands, um, engagement is kind of the big measure of success versus, say, conversion, right? Uh, so when we look at social media specifically, um, we tend to look at data. Data is kind of the big, the big, uh, milestone when it comes to why we're making content and content marketing as, as a, as a strategy. Um, but right now, um, that data tends to dictate a lot of creative. And so we get led a lot by trend. And trend, um, is very interesting. 'cause trend and creative don't always go hand in hand. And so right now, when we are, say, at an outdoor retailer or an outdoor brand, it can conflict with brand, um, look and feel. Uh, so when we get a lot of TikTok dances, when we get a lot of TikTok challenges, uh, or Instagram, um, uh, trends, uh, it's hard to track kind of success because we're kind of jumping on this bandwagon.

(04:17):

So previously, you know, outdoor content was very aspiration based, inspiration based, um, motivating people to get outdoors, motivating people to kind of, uh, enjoy the product as intended in outdoor spaces. But now we're seeing a lot of briefs that come in that's like, uh, follow what these people are doing on Instagram. And dancing is, is a very popular one. Um, doing things that are very kind of non-sequitur, uh, that don't necessarily make a lot of sense. And so you start to have this kind of conflict as a creative of, well, I thought we were this outdoor brand. I thought we were trying to inspire people to do these healthy things, and now it's, uh, do this weird soundbite challenge or do this weird kind of, uh, this weird motion, because that's what gets a lot of engagement, and that means success, right? Uh, but it's hard to reconcile that sometimes.

(05:11):

How, how does that actually translate to success for us as a brand versus as an individual in the social media space? So that's kind of the, the, the, the start of that idea of like, why make meaningful content when the algorithm says dance? It, it kind of comes down to this, the shift in what is the purpose of content. If you think about content as like a, an extension of advertising, advertising used to be very culturally based, used to be this, um, this extension of reaching out to a community to motivate people to purchase or to, to, uh, align with a brand and a product. And now it's very data based. It's trying to place in front people based on, um, behaviors. It's not necessarily about what the content is, it's about getting in front of an audience. And as we know, social media can be very invisible.

(06:10):

It's behind anonymity. It's, it's, uh, a lot of it can be, um, difficult to even see if you're in front of a real human being. So are these trends actually changing our creative in ways that we don't know if is even actually beneficial for the brand? So that's, that's kind of a lot, but it, it actually, uh, occupies a lot of my time as far as, uh, <laugh>. Yeah. Do these numbers actually reflect success of engagement or do these numbers that we're chasing these trends artificially feel like we're doing something successful when in reality it's distracting us from, um, capturing an authentic audience, authentic success, because we are drifting away from, um, like meaningful interactions, meaningful, um, engagements with, uh, our core audience or potential audiences because we have chased a cheaper potential audience or a, a numbers gain.

Cole Heilborn (07:12):

Yeah. Fascinating. Uh, we're gonna have, we're gonna have a lot to talk about today, <laugh>. Yeah, that was

Kevin Knutson (07:16):

Just the intro.

Cole Heilborn (07:16):

Buckle up, <laugh>. Well, so let's back up a little bit. Tell us a little bit about, if you could give us like the one minute version of your history and your career. You know, I'm as an art, you're an art director currently. I, to kind of give our audience a heads up, you know, I see, I see a need to bring more people like you, Kevin, to the show because a lot of the conversations we have on the show are kind of let back, and I guess maybe this is a 30,000 foot level, but like, we talk a lot about strategy, we talk about a lot about like, big picture, like where is the industry going? How is everyone evolving and how are we adapting? But you know, for me personally, like as a production company, you know, we're kind of operating at that 5,000 foot level.

(07:57):

We're taking briefs, we're taking strategy that's been implemented, and then we're trying to figure out how do we build creative, how do we tell stories, et cetera, around all this stuff. And I, I'm really curious to bring more people like you to the show. And so people like folks just expect that that's gonna be happening because I, I see a need to try to bridge these two worlds, um, between the creatives and the strategy. And Kevin, I think you, you're gonna, you can talk really well to both of those worlds with your experience, can you kind of give our audience a little background on what is your role as an art director and kind of the brief, the last 20 years of where you've been?

Kevin Knutson (08:29):

Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, I'm a bit of a weird case, uh, because I started my path, um, in, uh, creative and, and production actually as more of a production artist. I got into this world, uh, with an encounter with a grizzly bear in the Montana wilderness. And I had a camera in my hand. I was not a professional, uh, photographer or a cinematographer. Um, you know, I'll spare you the big details of it, but, um, we parted ways, friends and I parted ways with this belief that I wanted to be outdoors, telling stories about nature and, and, and animals.

Cole Heilborn (09:09):

You, you parted ways with the bear as a friend.

Kevin Knutson (09:11):

Well, you went one way. I went the other way. Okay. So we, we parted ways without incident, I should

Cole Heilborn (09:16):

Say, <laugh>. I thought maybe there was more, uh, communication between you and the bear

Kevin Knutson (09:19):

 Yeah, no, I didn't show up in my campsite later, and we didn't have a jam session or anything. Um, but I got very close to it. And, and my instinct was to, to raise a camera and, and put a, a photo between us, um, which was just this kind of overdrive moment, you know, where you just don't think you react. And that was my first encounter with a, with a grizzly bear. Um, and to like have that instinct to, to want to capture a photo, um, when I was just taking pictures of flowers. Um, but then there was this moment, probably not a healthy instinct, but it was just one of those not thinking moments. And, um, when I had time to think, like, you know, oh gosh, that was, uh, maybe not the smartest thing to do. Uh, I, I realized like I should apply myself to this.

(10:07):

And so I, uh, realized I love creating ecosystems. How can you not only create a thing, a video, a, a story, but, um, tell that story in multiple ways or in multiple areas? How do you, how do you, um, uh, hone that message in multiple platforms for maximum, uh, impact? And so I started to transition more into a producer director role, uh, working with brands to, um, make cohesive voices, uh, across platforms. And that landed me, um, more to brand work. And that's where I started with like REI, uh, and continued to grow my career, right? I started to be a translator between, um, production artists and creatives. It's, it's a, it's an interesting spot to be in.

Cole Heilborn (11:04):

Yeah. Uh, so yeah, that, that's super helpful to understand. And I think that probably gives a little more bearing to an understanding of like, of your perspective about this topic at hand. You mentioned a few things in your intro that I want to circle back to this idea of, you know, is are we, is social media distracting us and, and, and drifting and pulling us away from maybe the things that are important as brands? I guess what is, before maybe we go down that rabbit hole, like, what, what is the landscape that you see today? Um, how do you see brands as a whole, kind of this whole outdoor industry? Like, what, what does it all look like to you, um, as you have conversations with colleagues? Like, what are the things that you see and you hear about what are the challenges that brands face in this convoluted media landscape?

Kevin Knutson (11:53):

Yeah. Um, I think, uh, before I get to that, I also, I wanna make an overarching statement, um, because I think we, we run a fine line of being people who yell at clouds and say, social media is evil. And it's, you know, all those, those young kids just dance and they're rotting. I wrote antisocial media, um, not inherently, I should say. Um, I just think we tend to use it wrong. Um, but more on that later, <laugh>, just in case. Uh, I come off as a curmudgeon. I still got a few years in me, um, <laugh>. But yeah, the state of the industry right now, um, you know, it's, it's, it's at a point where I think, um, it had a heyday of content marketing, uh, where it was this unfiltered passion for the outdoors, and let's share all these beautiful stories and let's welcome people into our brands with this vision of who we are and what we believe in.

(13:02):

And right now, uh, there's a lot of conflict in that. It's no longer unfiltered. It's very filtered. And to kind of sum that up would be very difficult. Um, and I think would go a long ways to solve, uh, kind of what that issue is. I think some of it is a little bit nameless right now, um, but I think there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of fear in the industry of being yourself and yourself. I mean, the brand or, or, um, exactly that brand's voice and vision. And when you put yourself out there of, we believe in this, we feel this, these are our values. You are being very, um, transparent, you're being very vulnerable, and content is the vessel in which you share those values. Content marketing is where you can be editorial and be very, um, true to what you believe and welcome people into that community.

(14:06):

Uh, but unfortunately, those don't result in, uh, immediate conversion. Those are a long game. Um, and when you start to see that you need more sales, you need more conversion, you need higher, uh, ROI in your content, uh, that risk aversion becomes, uh, fear. And you don't want to invest in content. You don't want to make people mad if they don't align with your values. You don't want people to feel quote unquote alienated, which I disagree with by sharing your values, but that's some conversations that have come up. Um, and so you, you close off on that, that, uh, side of things. There's a lot of nothing words out there right now. It has to be exciting. Like, okay, like, that's like asking, it has to be a viral video. Like what does that mean? You know? Um, and so like you start to see this homogenization of creative and that that just doesn't mean anything.

(15:21):

But then you look at what is succeeding out there. A lot of things aren't 15 second videos, a lot of things don't have a logo in the very first five sec or the very first second. Um, so you're getting this like, beat sheet of how to succeed, but who stands up at the top, the people who throw that away? <laugh>, you're getting this beat sheet of how to fulfill, um, deliverables for the platforms to keep the platforms in business, not necessarily to succeed as an outdoor brand. And so, yeah, sure, there is a need to have impressions as a brand, to have content that keeps the business running, that's great. But when you are trying to create, uh, again, inspirational content or content that welcomes people in that are prospective, uh, shoppers or, or customers, that isn't gonna fit the need every single time. So you, you have this kind of two-sided problem of a lot of outdoor retailers that are, um, are blanding down their values and their vision because they're risk averse. And then you have the platforms that are completely homogenizing what they think customers want because they're data-driven, but then they're self-fulfilling that data.

Cole Heilborn (16:45):

Hmm.

Kevin Knutson (16:45):

They're dictating what succeeds, and then they're seeing that succeed and they're throwing away everything else. Um, and so nothing else can succeed because there's nothing else being made, uh, except for the few things that then throw away that playbook. And then you see things succeed. Um, how could you ever make a short film? Or how could you ever, uh, crawl to the top with something emotional? If everything is 15 seconds has a hook at the beginning, uh, I mean, that's, that's just kind of silly. Those need to be made, don't get me wrong. But other things could be made too. We are in a system that is never binary, but we treat it as binary. I think I started to address something of that, but I might have gotten off topic there a bit. <laugh>.

Cole Heilborn (17:35):

Well, so, so where does this, as you say, this risk aversion, where does that take us? Um, and I guess it's interesting, you're kind of, you're kind of, you, you're mentioning like the history of like content. And I think we can all kinda look back on 2000 15, 16, 17, and I don't know where it stops, but there was this era and Lindsey Hagen who was on the show, I dunno, a year or so ago, we spoke about like, kind of this quote unquote the golden age of branded filmmaking, golden branded content, and how that's changed and it's changing. Um, but you go back and I do this, like, I'll scroll through, um, maybe not the like top five or the top 10 like outdoor brands, but you, like, you pick, you know, some of the more medium sized brands, and you go back through their YouTube content, and there's like this year where they all produced short docs.

(18:23):

They're like the classic Yeti style. And I think for the most part, those flops, like, they didn't perform. And there's, we can dissect a lot of reasons and probably analyze that. Um, but there was this period in time where like, where everyone was producing similar types of content and for whatever reason, then everyone's stopped except for a few. And now here we are in a post covid slump where we, you know, we need the ROI you need the sales to, to make it to next quarter. Um, but where does that risk aversion take us if we're no longer taking risks? Also, I think there's an irony there. It's like the outdoor industry, the outdoors is full of, uh, of, of accepted risk. What, what's, what's, what's going on there between business risk and like risks outside? That's a, that's a different dichotomy that we could explore.

Kevin Knutson (19:14):

That's a very good point at the end there. Um, yeah, I mean, we, we promote people rock climbing or, or, you know, even camping has its own risks, but we, we don't wanna take those same risks. Um, something to be said about lead you by example. So where does the risk aversion take us? Well, it's a race to the middle. Um, and we're, when we're all in the middle, uh, no one stands out. And, um, you know, it, it's a shame for those of you listening in at home. Um, here's what's interesting about the Red Bull model. Okay? I don't buy their product. Um, but it's interesting because in this golden heyday, let, let me explain content marketing for, for those keeping track of home, uh, especially c-suite folks, um, who maybe are thinking like, ah, why would I ever want a documentary? This is how it works.

(20:07):

Um, so I, the person who's watching the films draw a line and say, I'm never gonna buy Red Bull, but I watched these short films. I remember watching like the, the, I think it was Danny McCaskill, uh, the, the, um, BM Xer, I'm not a BM Xer, so you got two strikes against your Red Bull. I don't want your product, and I don't BMX, but here's this athlete. And they were like, what do you want to do? And he's like, I want you to build this set that's like my bedroom for now. I was a kid and everything's like, built huge. There's a bed and there's like a toy chest and there's like dirty laundry and it's all huge, and I'm just gonna like rip some wicked ass tricks, uh, because I'm the best BM Xer in the world and I'm gonna just like do back flips and stuff off my bed and, and it's gonna be sick.

(21:10):

And like, I mean, I watched this athlete just having the time of his life. And what I saw was like an organization supporting the arts. This guy was an artist. He was having the time of his life. He also did the I of, uh, isle of Sky, or I of man, um, he did something in, uh, south America. I mean, to watch the sky is beautiful and I am not in that world at all. But I saw, I don't wanna get syrupy. I saw love <laugh>, you know. And so I go and I rock climb, I do bike. I don't, I don't be a mix, but I bike. Um, you know, I experience the outdoors. I have friends. And when we need a pick me up out in the middle of nowhere when there is sugar water and someone needs that sugar water, I have brand recognition.

(22:12):

And whether it's Monster Energy, drink Red Bull, and I dunno what the rest of them are, I might by my friend that Red Bull because it's like, oh, I remember the Danny McCaskill, and this was 15 years ago. I still remember that. That's content marketing that is delayed. That's not immediate ROI. But I remember that they put up hundreds of thousands of dollars to build that guy a bedroom for him to do wicked trick on at sick. There was this very interesting time where people, brands were being, um, they got this idea, they got this idea that we don't need this immediate return because we will be interesting and hold people's attention and be entertaining pure entertainment. What happened was, uh, a lot of brands brought people internal. They said, we want this. We want Yeti, we want Red Bull, but we're not gonna fund it. <laugh>,

(23:08):

You know, you're internal. You should be able to make it. And I think it got super saturated. I think a lot of people still tried to give that effort. They tried to do as much as they could. Um, we saw that work for a little while. It probably worked from 2008 to 2015, uh, maybe a little bit above. Um, people were really rallied. They tried as hard as they could and then it collapsed. Um, we realized, uh, it couldn't happen forever. We made a lot of that content. We made it very, very expensively. Um, we probably made too much of it. And then the pandemic happened. We couldn't make that much more of it for a while. And now again, we have very risk averse. We were already working on very little resources. Now there's almost no resources. And here we are again. Uh, so it's just this kind of trilogy of, of problems where it was, it was working really well.

(24:12):

There was a lot of wanting to copy that model and then the world got in the way. But when we talk about, uh, how those stories are kind of becoming oversaturated, um, you know, I think I should probably give another blanket statement that, you know, the, the observations I'm having and the statements I'm making are pretty much anecdotal, uh, and are just, uh, uh, uh, ideas and, and observations. And I'm sure there are smarter people than me out there who have, uh, been able to explain this. But here, here's how I think probably that is coming about, um, it's resources. Uh, so when we look at documentaries, like documentaries that have made it to, um, uh, silver screen or, or, you know, I, I would say even like Netflix or that get bought up at film festivals, you have timelines. And those are usually funded by filmmakers for a long time.

(25:13):

And then they hope to get bought. Um, you know, I worked on one that was shot over four years, uh, and then was bought up by the Smithsonian channel. Uh, you know, that's a long time. You will not get a brand to buy off on a four year long, um, project unless that has already been done and funded by someone. And they even then, they're not gonna pay for four years of your production, right? So what you get is, again, this immediacy. There's always an immediacy with, uh, well, capitalism with brands. And so when you think about a, a go to market or a campaign shoot, um, you're talking about a shoot that does have conversion has ROI, we're gonna go shoot 25 outfits in la. Um, that's both photo and video. Uh, you're talking about three to five days to shoot a lot. That will make you a lot of money, of a lot of assets that are gonna get in, uh, you know, website, email, social media, maybe some printed media like billboards or printed advertising in store assets.

(26:39):

A lot, a lot of assets are coming from that shoot for three to five days. Pretty minimal crew these days too. That's a photographer, an assistant, maybe a cinematographer producer. Um, then you're talking about a team that says, I want to do a story. I want to do a a shot documentary type story. You want to ask for more than five days. Are you outta your mind, uh, this being the monologue of leadership? You know, so what story can you tell in five days? Not much. You can't sit with that subject for very long. Um, and that's what it comes down to is how do you fund someone for five days, uh, or longer than five days? And you wanna tell a deep, meaningful story. You gotta spend time, you know, um, you gotta let the story unfold. Can't just, you don't let it unfold. Otherwise, you're doing an interview and you're getting B roll, and what's an easy story to get interviewed b roll for? You find someone that's got a tragic, uh, background that they've come out of it. You sit down with a sit down or, or a person in the field and you say, who are you? What, what happened? Where are you now? You walk with them on a, on a trail for a little bit. You go to their work. Does this sound familiar? Um, <laugh>, you, you get some photos of them as a kid.

Cole Heilborn (28:04):

I'm, I'm getting deja vu.

Kevin Knutson (28:05):

Yeah, that's what people can afford. And they think that that's enough. Um, it's not, but that's,

Cole Heilborn (28:12):

Well, but it, but it could be in a market that isn't saturated with content, but in an industry where that content is everywhere, I think that's the, that's part of the problem.

Kevin Knutson (28:22):

Yeah. And we, we, we are seeing that from all the brands. Um, and it is, it's just very practical, um, from a, from a cost perspective, but not from a, from a return to this. Now, some companies can knock that out of the park, but that's creative thinking. 'cause they find something a little bit different or they find a little bit of a different story. So it's not impossible, but, um, it's a bell curve, right? I get a little bit passionate about it because you're exactly right. You can't just make something good, put it on the internet and expect people to watch it in any industry, um, especially if it's branded. Um, so if it's brought to you by Eddie Bauer, if it's brought to you by, uh, you know, REI, um, if it's an amazing, crazy winner of a story, it might attraction, uh, but bell Curve, chances are it's a good story.

(29:30):

So it might get seen, you put it up, it'll probably get that initial rush of views. Uh, now the algorithm, again, depending on what day you put it up, what time you put it up, that's also gonna impact things. But pretty much all successful stories you see out there right now have a hurdle to get over, which is paid placement, um, which is pretty nutty already. So you have to invest not only in the production of the film or content, but getting it in front of people. Um, and there, there typically is a threshold of once you pay for enough eyes on it, it can start to take off on its own a little bit of a lighting the fire to see the forest burn, for lack of a better metaphor. Um, nobody wants to do that, uh, because they, a lot of people believe that their content is great enough and it's gonna pick off on its own.

(30:32):

Typically, it just doesn't work that way. Uh, but another thing is like, the platforms are different, and if you only make one piece of content and you put it up on YouTube and Instagram and, and, uh, Vimeo, you're look at different audiences. We can make a film, put it up on YouTube and Vimeo and see night and day differences. Uh, you know, on YouTube it might get 10,000 views on Vimeo, it might get 200, or it might get 200,000. Uh, it's really very interesting. Or like right now we have a film that's been doing the, um, the film festival circuit. It's winning awards. And so it's getting, uh, you know, packed theaters getting a lot of people viewing it. I don't it's possible to know the numbers. It's impossible to know the impact. Um, but it's doing great. And no one's really watching it online.

(31:27):

So, you know, is that successful? We're seeing physical bodies filling theaters in mountain towns, in outdoor field festivals. That's directly with our customer, um, who are choosing to occupy a theater, uh, to watch our content physically, but they're not finding it online. So like, maybe, maybe that's successful. Um, but then also there's this whole, uh, this whole game about algorithms. No single piece of content is a monolith and should never be measured as a success or a failure. And especially, I'm gonna pick on YouTube here because a lot of the work that we do is as filmmakers or, or, uh, content creators ends up on long form, uh, player, uh, platforms like YouTube. And YouTube is very secretive about their algorithms. And so they change it quite often. And right now, YouTube as a platform has changed to be a little bit more like a TV model.

(32:35):

Um, so although they, although they don't, um, expressly put out their, uh, algorithm data, a lot of people talk about it right now. They favor content that's over about 10 minutes long. And that, uh, shifts subject content about every minute. There's a lot of other invisible kind of algorithm stuff in there right now. Um, really it used to be you had to have really great keywords. That's not so much the, the issue anymore. Like in fact, even, uh, YouTube's, uh, support pages say like, you don't even need to keyword it anymore, probably. 'cause AI knows everything that's said and they just do it in the background anyway.

Cole Heilborn (33:13):

Oh, and I think the, if I had to derive one point from what you're sharing, which I think is really valuable, it seems like there are so many opportunities for there to be, as I said earlier, like pitfalls and like opportunities to create false data points that then can influence decisions down the road. And you're talking about the amount of work that it takes to make something like this successful. Like it's a lot. And if, you know, you theoretically miss a step or you miss a few steps, like it has a negative impact on the creative and the story as a whole. And then when the next year comes around and the marketing team is trying to decide to, you know, do we allocate budget for this project? You're looking at the last project and you're saying, well, was that successful or was it not successful?

(33:54):

And because there's so many, so many places where things can go wrong, I think we often, and brands often end up at a point where we're like, well, the last one did work, so why would we do another one then to your point, which is like, well then where does that take, where does that derive? Where, where do we then find influence or, or inspiration for creative? And then we start to look at what is the algorithm suggesting? Um, what is, what are other content creators suggesting? Maybe we should follow those trends rather than establish our own. And I can see kind of how this, this cycle perpetuates. Um, and as you said, maybe just do we end up in a spot where we're all in the middle? Um, no one's, no one's on the outside making, standing or making anything that really stands out. Uh, that's kind of a scary future to envision. And maybe we're already there

Kevin Knutson (34:44):

And you know, like even right now I see some paid content in my feed and last year I saw Shell Oil putting out outdoor tips, and that's that disconnect of data. Data said the outdoors is, uh, is popular. So Shell Oil said where to place your tent, and they had a stock photo of the, the feed coming out of a tent. What the hell is Shell Oil doing? You know, that is a disconnect between their brand and content. And to me, that's the same disconnect of an outdoor brand doing the dance video. And so when I say like, when was the last time you questioned why content was in front of you? Why was that content in front of me? I kind of understand because the algorithm knows I like the outdoors, the algorithm doesn't know that I would just, um, punching a oil in their face.

(35:40):

It's interesting, we sometimes don't answer these questions when we make the content, and there's still a lot of room for editorial content to answer all of these except for the why is this sort of in front of me, but also that can help change minds. Why is this in front of us? Um, so there's a lot of power in the content we make, and for brands that are risk averse, we need to take risks, uh, because we can answer all of these as the brand I work for, the brand I work for, the brand I work for, the brand I work for. And we could answer Eddie Bauer, Eddie Bauer, Eddie Bauer, R-E-I-R-E-I, north Face, Patagonia. It could be all of them for a good reason.

Cole Heilborn (36:20):

Yeah. Amazing. Kevin, I wanna thank you for your time. Thank you for your thoughts. Uh, this is a, this is, I know this is a fun conversation. This is an insightful conversation for me personally, and I know our audience will enjoy it. Also, if folks wanna connect with you, if they want to take the conversation offline and, and in person, if you're willing, um, where can they find you?

Kevin Knutson (36:42):

Uh, so I can be found on LinkedIn at, uh, Kevin p Kon. Uh, that's Kevin, p as in Patrick. And I can also be found on Instagram, um, at grouchy streetar.

Cole Heilborn (36:56):

Kevin, I wanna thank you for your time. Um, thanks for, thanks for everything. Uh, folks, if you enjoyed this episode, let us know. Shoot Kevin a note. Um, let him know you appreciated the time. Send us a note, feel if you're interested, leave us a review on Apple. Those things do supposedly help us, speaking of algorithms and all the con, the confusion behind algorithms, um, that would be appreciated. But, uh, Kevin, thanks again and I hope you have a great rest of your day and best wishes on the next endeavor. You're, you're, you're moving on to something new and fun.

Kevin Knutson (37:25):

Yeah, it was a great pleasure. I really, really liked being here. Thank you. All

Cole Heilborn (37:28):

Right, have a good day. 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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