Notes from Outdoor Media Summit: Why the Best Outdoor Brands Are Building Relationships, Not Renting Attention

Outdoor Media Summit is always one of my favorite events of the year. The reason I keep coming back? The people. Unlike most conferences where you swap business cards and never speak again, at OMS you build deeper, stronger connections. Whether that's between sessions in a meeting room, out on a hike during an excursion or petting puppies at Yappy Hour. Yes, that's a real event during the gathering (shoutout to Wilderdog).

I filled my notebook pages with scribbles from the week and one clear theme jumped out: You can pay for attention all you want but the minute you stop spending, it's gone. Relationships keep going.

Your fans are your best media buy

In a session titled Marketing Campaigns that Punched Above Their Weight speakers from three rad outdoor brands shared case studies on campaigns that overperformed.

Josh Garza from Gossamer Gear challenged us all to do less, better. He talked about a campaign launch where they teased the new product in a way that actually piqued the interest of their community of followers. Instead of trying to "manufacture" interest with a countdown or typical brand teaser post, give people something to decode.

Julie Maden from COAST talked about feeding the social media content monster, something I think all marketers can relate to. Her unlock to content at that scale and volume was TikTok creators.

Kelly Muededonck from Smartwool showed the audience how to turn your community into brand advocates. She shared this stat I can't stop thinking about: 65% of Gen Z describe themselves as content creators.

None of these brands simply threw money at the machine, they invested in the people who already loved their brand. And gave them the tools to spread that love to the masses.

Replace "algorithm" with "audience"

If you’re trying to figure out the algorithm...replace the word algorithm with audience.

Steven Smith, the creator behind the My Outdoors Life YouTube channel gave this incredible advice: He told the audience to stop trying to game the system and to focus on people. The algorithm is simply a tool that platforms use to determine who to show your content to. If you reframe your thinking around "why is the algorithm working against me" to "how can I create content my audience wants to watch" you won't just see higher view counts and engagement, you'll also enjoy the creation process more.

Nothing beats IRL

We saw this at Outdoor Retailer last month, too when we brought 150 content creators to the show. Meeting up in person is the unfair advantage right now. So much creative collaboration happens over DMs, video calls and cold emails these days that showing up in person can really help you stand out. We got to connect IRL with a bunch of Popfly creators like Colin Yen, Arielle Shipe and Black People Outside. And even introduce a few to Popfly brands that were at the gathering.

Our best advice for creators wanting to work with more brands: show up in person!

Community builds identity

Community, Clubs and Cult Followings brought together Rachel Leuthauser from Fjällräven, Jen Krupey from HydraPak and Mollie Hansen from Airstream to unpack what separates a loyal customer base from a real community.

The short answer is identity. The most loved brands sell something people point to and say, "This is who I am." When customers feel that way, the community starts to self regulate: members chime in on negative social comments before your social team ever sees them, customers meet up and find each other in the wild because they feel the brand is a part of them.

HydraPak's Run Club program is the perfect example of this. They aren't just giving out free gear, they are truly invested in these communities with regular calls, product feedback loops and funding.

The Fjällräven Classic is another legendary community event. They shared five things they've learned along the way:

• Start with people, not platforms. Let the community have ownership.
• Give people a reason to come together. Create something worth participating in.
• Build between the big moments. Ongoing in-person and digital experiences keep the community alive.
• Don't manufacture connection. Shared values create authentic connection.
• Let the community build the ecosystem. The individual is not the community builder.

Investing in community at this scale isn't cheap. And it isn't easy. It requires patience and willingness to play the long game. Mollie from Airstream shared that the average journey from first contact to purchase is more than 400 days.

Equal parts gut and data

One bone I have to pick with marketing lately is that everything has become so data-driven, we forget to listen to our gut. I always go back to the example of a brand sponsoring a ski film. We all know that's good for brand awareness, for building loyalty and for inspiring higher order value purchases. But since that's not easy to measure and Meta ads are, you end up with marketers who look at the data and say "stop sponsoring ski films and move all the money into Instagram ads because that's what is converting."

Drew Schneier from Mountain Hardwear shared some fascinating learnings around how they shifted their measurement framework to account for these discrepancies in available data. "Paid shows up at the finish line and acts like it ran the whole race." Those last few miles are important but don't forget about the training, the aid stations and everything it took to get there.

Last-click reporting makes it harder to defend the work that's actually influencing consumer behavior: the brand storytelling, the brand experiences and the brand partnerships that create demand in the first place. But it doesn't make it impossible.

What it all means for brands working with creators

The brands doing the real community building are pulling ahead. So stop renting attention and start owning relationships: with your creators, with your community and with your retailers.

• Do less, better. One great partnership piece beats ten forgettable campaign posts.
• Activate your existing community. Invest in the people who already know your brand, enable them with the resources to spread the love.
• Think audience, not algorithm. Give your followers a reason to stop scrolling.
• Measure the whole race. Creator content does its work long before the last click. Popfly gives you the tools to measure that impact

If your brand wants to stop renting attention and start owning relationships, you know where to find us. We'd be stoked to help you build and scale your UGC, athlete, community and ambassador networks.