SOAR Blog

We got an invite to Mayor Becker’s press conference this week announcing the new sustainability ordinances that he wants Salt Lake City to adopt- ordinances would make SLC’s sustainability plan the most comprehensive in the country. It’s too bad our team couldn’t make it to the press conference, which was really more of a press tour of a Salt Lake business and home already implementing the proposed ordinances. Said ordinances address:

photo credit: Jim Urquhart | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is great news for Salt Lake City and is completely in-line with the city’s values- and history. One Salt Lake Tribune article points out that the Mormon pioneers who settled the valley lived sustainably out of necessity and efficiency. Today Salt Lake’s residents pick up their bikes more often, belong to food co-ops and want to see a reduction in traffic. Most expect that the ordinances proposed by Mayor Becker will be passed by the city’s legislature.

A lot of the folks in this town that like it “green” also like to live in the green- and desert- that surrounds. It makes so much sense to make our residential and business lives sync up with our outdoor recreation hobbies. It makes sense why Outdoor Retailer, the place for the outdoor industry to convene, is in Salt Lake.

SOAR is excited to see how these ordinances are implemented over the next few years and what feedback the community has given the mayor in this week of review.

We’re proud of what this town is becoming, and that it is already the type of place 40,000 members of the outdoor recreation industry want to visit on an annual basis.

More on SLC’s green initiatives:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/49891706-76/becker-says-lake-salt.html.csp?page=1

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/49915105-82/becker-residents-salt-changes.html.csp

Nearly two months ago Bikes for Kids Utah hosted its first-ever omnium event with the University of Utah cycling team to raise money to get new bikes to kids and to support the U’s team. Both organizations did a ton to pull off the weekend-long event that included a criterium, hill climb time trial and road race. Bradlee Duncan, the U of U team race director, spearheaded and coordinated a good portion of the event, and helped make it a really successful fundraiser. Below are 10 of his tips for for race organizers, or, for racers 10 reasons to be nice to the race organizers and officials. It’s not as easy as it looks.

1. Sometimes people lose track of time and forget to do things, so build extra time into your plan.

2. Charge late registration fees, and make them expensive! Most of us are procrastinators and we need a little extra incentive to commit to a race in advance.

3. You can never have too many volunteers, so treat them nicely.

4. The officials are your best friends, the officials are your best friends, the officials are your best friends.

5. Government entities are slow and bureaucratic. You can’t start talking to them too early.

6. Have a specific registration game-plan, otherwise it’s chaos. Did you hear me? it. is. chaos.

7. People can be impatient, that’s why it’s so important to be patient.

8. Be patient.

9. Sometimes even Mother Nature loses track of time and gets things mixed up; be ready in case she sends warm, sunny weather in March and a few feet of light fluffy Utah powder in April.

10. Have fun!!!!!!!!! You’re doing something that fosters and grows the sport you love!

To read the press release about this event, click here.

Check out Bradlee’s blog too, TwoWheelPhotos.blogspot.com.

Credit Matthew McDermott

Outdoor Retailer ended in late January on a high note with both industry attendance and optimism up from winter 2009. In the midst of writing orders and thinking about upcoming selling seasons, though, the industry as initiated dozens of efforts to provide relief for Haiti after its devastating earthquake.

Manufacturers across the Winter Market show floor offered product to an industry Haitian relief effort coordinated by Terramar, Sierra Trading Post & Eric Larsen. The Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) also partnered with Americares to get first aid kits, water purification systems, headlamps, tarps and hydration containers willing donated from manufacturers in the outdoor industry to Haitians in desperate need of essential supplies. (See below for more information on getting your product to Haiti via Sierra Trading Post and Americares).

In an industry that highly values authenticity and social responsibility, it’s no surprise that the outdoor industry mobilized so quickly to aid Haiti. It employs individuals with just as much strength and heart as the products it manufactures- prepared to be put to work at a moments notice. These qualities and others make SOAR super proud to be part of the outdoor industry.

In fact, we see these qualities in the outdoor industry year round. We associate with outdoor industry leaders that support advocacy groups and let their passion for their sport drive their compassion. SOAR has had some fun and rewarding opportunities to work on a pro-bono basis with non-profits like Bikes for Kids Utah and Trips for Kids. We get to see how much work goes into each event and initiative. Every donation, vote of confidence, re-tweet and sponsorship makes a difference.

Let’s all continue to heed OIA’s call for the industry to “dig deep” during this and every time of crisis and need.

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Click here to read about the partnerships forming in the outdoor industry to help Haiti.

To donate this urgently needed product/equipment contact Randy Weiss at Americares at (203) 658-9527 or rweiss@americares.org. All donations will be delivered by air and sea directly to the region by Americares.

Outdoor Retailer exhibitors are invited to donate show products to Haiti via Red Cross if it can arrive at Sierra Trading Post by FEBRUARY 8, 2010. All packages should be sent to Sierra Trading Post Robin Jahnke/Haiti 5121 Campstool Road Cheyenne, Wyoming 8200.

The outdoor industry is abuzz on Twitter, contributing comments, queries and suggestions to all participating manufacturers, buyers, retailers, media and advocacy groups in the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market through the show’s aggregate feed, ORWinter. Since SOAR launched Outdoor Retailer into the Twittersphere for the 2009 Winter Market, the outdoor industry has channeled much of its conversation through the platforms the show has provided. Attendees and exhibitors getting ready to travel to Salt Lake are using #ORWinter in their Tweets about the show to create dialogues and relationships before they even step foot into the Salt Palace. They can also follow ORShowLive to keep up with OR-specific event announcements that will help them make the most of their time at the show.

The ORWinter conversation will continue throughout the show as attendees Tweet about the new products they’re seeing, the people they’re meeting and the industry events they’re enjoying. Outdoor Retailer sponsor Channel Signal will display these conversations, too, on four 50-inch screens strategically placed around the show.

They’ll toggle between the ORWinter Twitter feed and the top five mentioned exhibiting OR brands. Look for them while you’re there. It will be convincing visual evidence of how social media permeates even the outdoor industry and a reflection of how fast the conversation can shift, especially when there are thousands of people participating.

Next to the monitors will be a directory of 200 exhibitors on Twitter.

If you’re interested in attending the show, January 21-24, please register at outdoorretailer.com. See you there!

I pledge to reduce my greenhouse gas emissions by 450 pounds during May, which many U.S. cities, including Salt Lake City, recognize as Bike Month.

I have the farthest commute of all the SOAR team members (about 30 miles), so I’m not going to attempt to commute the entire way by bike. But I will take the bus two to three times per week, and stop asking my husband to drop me off and pick me up from my home bus stop (I learned at the Bicycle Leadership Conference that 40 percent of trips in the U.S. are just two miles and are the most polluting). If I do this during the month of May, UtahCommuter.com tells me that I can reduce my vehicle trips by 450 to 680 miles and my greenhouse gas emission by 380 to 575 pounds.

Me prepping for the Momentum bike fashion show at Interbike

I first started using mass transit because it was cheaper than buying snow tires for my 1988 California-raised Volvo. Even though the threat of snow is gone (let’s hope), I still try to commute by bus twice a week. The entire commute from point to point takes about 30-40 minutes longer than it would if I drove by myself, but I think it is worth the extra time spent. One-way bus fare cheaper than a gallon of gas and the time I have on the bus to read Newsweek and study Portuguese is priceless. Plus, I get home to my husband in a much better mood not having fought traffic for 45 minutes.

I’ll also reduce my green house gas emissions by biking around town more. I’ve been assessing every road I drive on for its bikeability and often think, “I could totally bike this. Why am I even driving a car?” I see bike trips to the gelaterie are in my not-so distant future.

You can learn how many pounds of carbon emissions your commute reduces by registering at UtahCommuter. com (hint: if you only commute by a car alone, your commute reduces NONE! Think about it.)

Well . . . it’s finally official: SOAR is now the public relations agency for Outdoor Retailer! Way, way cool!

I plan to write more about this in the near future, but for now, I’ve enclosed below the “official” text of the full news release announcing this news.

Later,

David (“Poppa P”) Politis

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Outdoor Retailer Signs SOAR Communications as its PR Agency of Record

SOAR Communications selected to manage public relations efforts for Outdoor Retailer, a division of Nielsen Business Media and producer of the leading trade show for advancing the active outdoor marketplace

DRAPER, Utah and SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. – Oct. 21, 2008 – Outdoor Retailer (OR), a division of Nielsen Business Media, today announced it has signed Utah-based SOAR Communications as its public relations agency of record.

Under terms of the multi-year agreement, SOAR Communications (a full-service marketing communications agency), will develop and execute public relations campaigns serving each of OR’s annual events, as well as all of its year-round PR needs.

“During the past three years, SOAR Communications has generated great results for our sister shows – Interbike and Health+Fitness Business Expo – so it’s clear they understand the specialty sports marketplace and our culture,” said Kenji Haroutunian, OR’s show director. “Naturally, we’re looking for similar results from SOAR with Outdoor Retailer, both in solidifying our support for trade media journalists, while also broadening our efforts to reach consumer-focused media outlets throughout the U.S. and abroad. As expected, SOAR has already hit the ground running on some key OR and industry initiatives. We look forward to a long and successful relationship with the SOAR team.”

Formed in 2004, SOAR Communications serves the Sports, Outdoor, Athletics and Recreation industries, thus the moniker SOAR.

“After attending my first OR (Summer Market) in 2004, I soon discovered that there wasn’t a single agency in recreation-rich Utah that focused specifically on servicing the sports, outdoor, athletics and/or recreation industries,” said David Politis, chief executive officer for SOAR Communications. “That led me to form SOAR in the first place, which is why it’s so cool to now be working with OR and the great OR team. I feel like I’ve now gone full circle back to SOAR’s very first beginnings, and that’s just awesome!”

As well as being the CEO of Draper, Utah-based SOAR Communications, Politis is the president and founder of Politis Communications (a long-time strategic communications and public relations agency focused on serving technology clients).

A year after forming SOAR, Politis invited Chip Smith to take the position of president at SOAR, thus leveraging Smith’s nearly 20 years of marketing and sales experience, including 10 years with bicycle industry leaders Shimano and Specialized and three years with Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest agencies in the world. The resulting combination of Politis and Smith has helped transform SOAR Communications into one of the up-and-coming sports marketing communications agencies in North America.

“We’re excited to take the lessons we’ve learned with Interbike and HFB and apply them to OR,” said Chip Smith, president of SOAR Communications. “Naturally, SOAR will continue to serve the media in a collaborative manner that best meets their needs, while always looking for the best ways to land positive media exposure for the show and its exhibitors. We’re also eager to help Kenji and his team achieve their goals of further strengthening the relationships between OR exhibitors and endemic media, while also expanding exposure to non-endemic journalists as well.”

About Outdoor Retailer
Outdoor Retailer (OR), produced by Nielsen Business Media of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., is a full service trade show company that creates, markets and produces high-quality expos and educational conferences. OR is the leading outdoor industry business-to-business event management company, bringing together manufacturers, retailers, industry advocates and media to conduct the business of outdoor recreation. Now celebrating more than 25 years of successful events, Outdoor Retailer (www.outdoorretailer.com) gathers approximately 40,000 attendees on a semi-annual basis for its Winter and Summer Market shows.

The next opportunity to preview the future of the outdoor industry will start at the 6th Annual Backcountry Base Camp at Snowbasin ski resort on January 21, 2009, followed by the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market at the Salt Palace Convention Center from January 22-25, 2009 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Outdoor Retailer Summer Market will bring the best of summer outdoor brands to Salt Lake City, Utah at the Open Air Demo from July 19-20, 2009 and the Trade Show from July 21-24, 2009.

About SOAR Communications
Voted one of Utah’s top three marketing agencies of 2008 by the readers of Business Connect magazine, SOAR Communications is an innovative strategic marketing communications agency focused on the sports, outdoor, athletics and recreation industries. SOAR offers clients a variety of services including advertising, collateral development, database-marketing, graphic/web design, public/media relations, social media/networking campaigns and sales support programs. Visit www.soarcomm.com or call 801-556-8184 for more information.

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I couldn’t help but notice a great article in Friday’s NYTimes.com highlighting Wild Rivers Expeditions, a Bluff Utah river tours company and one of its fabulous tour guides. According the article, freelance writer Kate Siber and a friend signed up for a three day float trip as a way to see the historic region of Monument Valley and linked article above was the result.

Beyond her witty writing evidenced by phrases describing her guide

Nathan Sosa, a Bluff native and self-described hydrologic navigation specialist, stood on the bow of an 18-foot-long baby-blue raft and described the protocols of the river and the boat. He wore a nylon American-flag jacket, button-down shirt and tie, flimsy prom-queen tiara and rubber boots — you know, traditional outdoorsman wear.

and the landscape

Rolling past a host of almost alien-looking geological formations, cliff-top Anasazi dwellings and pristine wildlife habitat, the river is something of a greatest hits album of southern Utah’s attractions.

this article reminded me of one of the areas of outdoor recreation I have not participated in for a few years-rafting.

However, I will be redeeming myself this summer with a raft trip through Flaming Gorge and hopefully, a few product demos at the upcoming Summer OR Show. Yeah for summer!

I’ve now been “officially” working in the Sports, Outdoor, Athletics and Recreation industries for slightly more than 3-and-a-half years now, and I must say I continue to be shocked at the overall lack of new media sophistication I see within these industries.

Understand that this is not meant as a slam against all companies in these markets (although it may come across as such).

I also recognize that almost every company I now find in any industry has a Web site. But for many companies, that’s it. And in some instances, companies have little more than a brochure-ware Website.

Others are beginning to step forward and are beginning to embrace newer forms of interactive media, sometimes known as Web 2.0 technologies. These solutions and tools include

• Blogging,
• Online video,
• Social networks (MySpace and Facebook being the most popular, but not the only ones),
• Microblogging (through such tools as Twitter and Pownce, to name two), and
• Podcasting.

What’s even more amazing to me, however, is the seeming lack of interactive / Web 2.0 sophistication among the media companies serving the outdoor and recreation industries. Here again, I’m not attacking every media-publishing company serving clients and/or end-users in the recreation, sports, athletics and/or outdoor industries. Just most of ‘em.

Continue Reading »

It’s been a busy week for SOAR and Interbike staff. Last weekend, David and Maura attended the Bicycle Leadership Conference (see David’s posts below) and yesterday I went up to the Outdoor Retailer Backcountry Base Camp outdoor demo at the Snowbasin ski resort and walked the exhibit area with Rich Kelly of Interbike fame.

As of a few months ago, Rich’s job has became a lot busier. He now oversees marketing communications for not just Interbike, but also Nielsen’s Outdoor Retailer (OR), Action Sports Retailer (ASR), FlyFishing Retailer and Health+Fitness Business (HFB) trade shows. Rich has been really busy getting ready for last weekend’s BLC, the OR show that started yesterday and the ASR show that starts Thursday. He even had a chance to write a post about his exploits on InterbikeTimes yesterday in Snowbasin lodge.

Similar to Interbike’s OutDoor Demo, the OR Backcountry Base Camp gives retailers a chance to try out upcoming products. There were more than 50 exhibitors there. The majority of the products there were more for backcountry use rather than resort skiing, but Snowbasin was a perfect venue. Retailers could ride the lifts up to try out telemark skis and boots, head up into the hills on snowshoes or cross country skis and even slide down the hill on sleds.

I don’t know how Rich finds the time to blog, but he does. As I‘m writing this the indoor portion of the show is going on and I need to get over there (It’s at the Salt Lake City Convention Center, about 5 miles from my house). One of our other clients, Delta 7 Sports has a couple of its Arantix IsoTruss carbon fiber mountain bikes in the Miōn Footwear booth connected to generators that when pedaled generate electricity for the booth, making Miōn’s booth the first human-powered booth in the history of the OR show.

Stay tuned for more pictures.

Chip

I’m somewhere above Las Vegas headed for the relative warmth of San Diego and the annual Bicycle Leadership Conference.

Given that it was something like 8 degrees Farenheit last night in Sandy, Utah, 60+ degrees is gonna feel like heaven.

Plus, I’ll get a chance to hang out with several clients and friends, while also getting an updated pulse on the cycling industry.

I’m particularly looking forward to Lance Camisasca’s presentation Saturday morning about future location prospects for Interbike. Should be interesting.