The Epic Sun Valley Giveaway (A Media Case Study)

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How should brands leverage social media? We’re faced with this question daily — it is without a doubt one of the most common themes across nearly every industry. This fall, Backbone Media helped Eddie Bauer run a successful Facebook campaign that serves as an excellent example of how to harness the power of social.

Eddie Bauer had two overarching goals: To increase the audience for brand content (via more Facebook fans and email list subscribers) and boost fan engagement with the brand – and by extension, viral and social brand exposure.

To accomplish these goals, Backbone facilitated a partnership between Eddie Bauer and the Sun Valley Resort to create the “Epic Sun Valley Giveaway,” a co-branded Facebook sweepstakes application. Our friends over at Black Dog Digital designed and developed the application, and contest prizes included a head-to-toe ski setup from Eddie Bauer, two 2-day lift tickets and a two night stay in Sun Valley . The app ran from October 15 through November 1, 2012 and was supported with a combination of organic content and several forms of paid Facebook advertising.

The result? In just two weeks, we saw a 47% increase in the Eddie Bauer fan base – over 36,650 new fans. Their email list grew by 6,824 email addresses, and the number of people talking about Eddie Bauer increased to over 46,579 – a 1,236% increase (measured by # of shared stories about the EB page). Larger fan base? More emails? Engagement with the brand? Check, check and check.

Why does this matter? For starters, the Millennial generation typically values social recommendations above all else. In a recent study, 84% said that social opinions influence their purchasing decisions. When fans engage with the brand – liking, sharing and commenting on Eddiue Bauer content – their friends register those implicit social recommendations. With larger fan base, this becomes even more interesting: Eddie Bauer can now connect with the friends of their fans, increasing the total reach of their Facebook page content to over 8.4 million people.

Social media is exciting arena that allows brands to give massive scale to word of mouth marketing. From SmartWool’s Strip to your SmartWool and Fanalog apps, to New Belgium’s Shift campaign, and dozen of others in between, we’re excited about the work we’ve done this year, and can’t wait to see how the medium evolves in 2013.

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Backbone and POC POV

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Fall is beautiful in Aspen. It’s the perfect time of year for cycling, climbing and fly fishing, with the anticipation of coming snowfall. It’s also an ideal time to catch up with friends.

This past weekend Backbone and POC hosted a POV event. With many industry and thought leaders in town for Aspen’s The Meeting, we themed this as a GOAT – Gathering of Artists, Athletes and Technologists. Pretty simple concept really: get the best and brightest together in a room and let it go from there.

Dirk Collins, Megan Beck from Acumen Fund and Alex Hillinger

The basic concept of GOAT comes from Good Chemistry’s Alex Hillinger and One Eyed Bird’s Dirk Collins. What looks like an odd mix of action sports heroes, artists and tech geeks actually makes sense when you put them all in a room together.

Robert Scoble, Nicole Birkhold from Freeskier and 1% Ambassador/creative master Chase Jarvis

How Jeremy Jones, Dav, Griffin Post or Todd Ligare look at a steep face in AK is different than how you or I do. They think, “hit the knoll throw a 3, land on the ramp and big drop over the ‘schrund.” I think, “I want my Mommy.”

TGR’s Todd Jones, POW’s Jeremy Jones and Brad Fayfield

Point being, what they see as interesting and relevant is not perceived by the common eye. The same holds true when Chase Jarvis or Todd Jones looks at imagery, or Robert Scoble or Gary Arndt think about emerging trends in digital media.

POC’s Jarka Duba, Chris and Jesse Davenport and Ultralite’s Bill Emerson

So, we got our GOAT on! What industry you hailed from mattered not. Just that you want to meet others and talk about what you are seeing.

Amanda Boyle from Google, TWS Mike Lewis and Greg ‘the sweater’ Wright

The takeaway is to beware of the status quo and observe mainstream events with an eye to draw forth the micro trends and changes that are occurring. These increments are the precursors to future trends and breakthroughs.

Afternoon ride with Pete McBride, Fielding Miller, Jarka Duba, Brian O’Neill, Jeremy and Tiffany Jones, Todd Herrick, Dirk Collins, Chris Davenport, Laura Patten, Travis McClain and Penn and Kir Newhard

Oh, yeah, just FYI, it was super fun. Thanks to POC for the support, Aspen Snowmass, friends from 1% for the Planet and Protect Our Winters. See all photos here:

Onward!

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Don’t Call it a Retreat

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When I started working at Backbone over five short years ago, our bi-annual get togethers consisted of eleven of us having a small BBQ at a partner’s Carbondale home. Good food, sparkling dinner conversation (lots of jokes about how young and naive I was…) and PR State of the Union discussions.
Ahhh how times have changed.

At Backbone, the word “corporate retreat” makes us all twitch a little bit and one intern actually broke out in hives a few years back when those words were spoken. Penn told us recently that we were not allowed to call it a retreat. “We do not retreat at Backbone,” he said, “we charge.”

Well, in the past few years, and in response to a growing staff, development of new media departments and the creation of satellite offices in Jackson and Denver, we all agree that face-time, and company-wide get togethers are more important that ever to ensure a unified “charge”.

Considering our company’s addiction to the early adoption of any and all i-products, getting off the grid also becomes paramount. For a company based on a work hard, play hard philosophy, it is essential that we have at least 48 hours of un-interrupted time to share a beverage or two, hit the river and the trail together and make sure that we all spend enough time with the other 30+ members of the staff to uncover some of our finest personal skills which may never find their way into an RFP…

What we found this past week was a veritable cornucopia of freak flags, red flags, jazz choir histories, poor facial hair and haircut decisions in the mid 90’s, impressive first jobs (TCBY, Donut making), plastic baby launching talents, slow-cooking culinary prowess, glow stick dancing, remarkable fireproof-ness (accidental), SUP racing dogs, bocce ball balancing skills, a shared love of inflatables, freestyle margarita making skills and a company-wide borderline contractual agreement to only sit in the chair one may or may not have personally brought on the trip. Real resume builders.

Location: Twin Lakes, CO (which is conveniently now for sale- not sure if it hit the market before or after we were there…)
Attendance: 3 Partners, 28 staffers, 7 dogs, and one very scary plastic baby.
Takeaway: We are well positioned for another successful year as the leading agency in the active lifestyle industry, and are equally well positioned to start a traveling circus.

Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Climbing, Colorado, Fishing, Musings, Trip Reports, Uncategorized

Backbone Grows into the Tourism Industry

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Backbone Media started over 14 years ago as a small agency of skiers and climbers representing the premium gear brands we used and loved in the outdoors. While that attitude is still at our core, Backbone has come a long way as an agency. We have increased the sophistication of our PR services, added a media planning and buying department and developed a full suite of social media capabilities. We have also expanded our client base to include broader active lifestyle brands like New Belgium Brewing and Eddie Bauer, technology clients like iOmounts, as well as  several non-profit organizations, including Big City Mountaineers, the Roaring Fork Conservancy and 1% For the Planet.

In recent years, Backbone has also expanded into destination PR and marketing, utilizing the talents of our team members who have years of experience working with Vail, Aspen Skiing Company, Banff and more. We began in our own backyard with Snowmass Village. Tasked with improving Snomass’ social media presence to engage both new and returning visitors, we developed a voice unique to Snowmass and launched a series of interactive Facebook applications including a recent Instagram promotion.  We’re also on the verge of launching a market research study to understand the who, what, when and why of Snowmass tourism in order to help the town more effectively attract and retain visitors.

Last fall, we expanded our work in Snowmass with the new Westin Snowmass Resort and the Wildwood Snowmass hotel, new properties opening in late 2012. In our constant effort to promote collaborative opportunities between our clients, we recently hosted a party with the Westin, Wildwood and New Belgium, which has plans to open a Ranger Station bar adjacent to the Westin as well as a New Belgium-themed bar inside the Wildwood.

We also handle the media for Telluride, Sun Valley Resort, Mount Bachelor Resort and Taos Ski Valley. We customize our work for each client, but the extensive research we’ve done in this space has paid dividends for all our resort clients.

Sun Valley’s Winter 2011-2012 Travelocity campaign is one of our most successful to date. The ads generated 162,390 click-throughs, resulting in a 90 percent increase in hotel sales, 350 percent increase in package bookings, and 146 percent year-over-year revenue increase. During the three-month campaign, Travelocity recorded $342,596 in bookings for Sun Valley. 

Our tourism client roster extends beyond the mountain community as well. In a PR partnership that began late last year, we’ve helped to promote Catalina Island as a reemerging tourism destination. We focused on several specific audiences: local Californians who may have overlooked the island for short weekend getaways; an affluent nationwide audience for longer stays; and an outdoor audience with events like the Gran Fondo Mountain Bike Race and the Catalina Eco Marathon. We’ve seen great results in just a few months, with coverage in the LA Times, CBS News, the Chicago Tribune, and Runner’s World. We’re not taking all the credit, but Catalina is reporting busy summer bookings

Life at Backbone becomes even busier with each new project, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re excited by our growth into the tourism industry and the ambitious goals of our clients. As the lines traditionally associated with PR and media buying/planning continue to blur, it’s difficult to be certain about where the next few years will take us. We plan to stick to our tried and true recipe: exceed expectations with outstanding services and an authentic representation of our clients’ ideals.

Posted in: Client News, Interesting Read, Social Media, Tourism, Uncategorized

Kara Armano in Fly Rod & Reel

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When she’s not tearing up Carbondale on a mountain bike or charging through a CrossFit workout, you’re likely to find our resident fly fishing expert Kara Armano out on the water. She’s graced the pages of the Verteblog before, and she is still making waves across the industry this summer. She competed in the Teva Mountain Games, joined the boys from Outside on the Gunnison, and was most recently profiled in the Summer issue of Fly Rod & Reel.

Kara Armano in "Fishy Jobs," a profile of great fly fishing industry jobs

 

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