SOAR Blog

If you attended Outdoor Retailer Winter Market this year, you know that it was a great show that epitomized the industry’s resilience and hope. Many long-time exhibitors were there along side many new exhibitors launching their products OR.

Despite the huge amounts of preparation that goes into each OR show, SOAR, like the rest of the OR operations staff, doesn’t have time to rest on its laurels when the show is happening in the Salt Palace.

We start before day one managing the periphery of the show to make sure only qualified media get badges and that their press needs are me once they’re inside. We help journalists work around the show director’s very busy schedule and step in as spokespersons when needed. We get up at 4:30 a.m to coordinate early morning shows on the floor, with hair brushed and smiles on our faces. On occasion, we double as models for exhibitors’ product, feeling a little embarrassed and mostly excited when attendees point and ask “Weren’t you on T.V. this morning?” We get a little jealous when attendees ask us about the discounted lift tickets they can purchases with their OR badges, not sure of the next time we’ll be able to hit the slopes.

Though we don’t do as many laps around the show floor as most retailers, the 12-hour day catches up with us once it’s time to party with the industry. Still, we party on. The Woolrich Fashion show made us want to dance (we may have acted on that impulse) and industry’s enthusiasm over the Canada Goose Cup was super fun to watch. We talked to Pam Theodosakis about Prana’s hockey win the next morning as we prepped her to speak about Project OR on camera with a local TV studio.

Of course, between these appointments we are writing like crazy so we can keep media in the loop about the news of the show. We each manage to get away for a few moments, though, to admire amazing new products on the show floor, talk with exhibitors and see how the Project OR designs are developing.

Even though there is still snow still on the ground and in the mountains, we’re shifting our attention to Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, running August 2-3, 2010. Even more exciting times for SOAR and the outdoor industry are on the horizon.

Here’s to warmer weather and more hot products!

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!

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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Burke challenges bike manufacturers to actively support advocacy efforts, including boosting donations to advocacy organizations to 0.5 percent of annual sales

SAN DIEGO, January 20, 2008 — John Burke, president of Trek Bicycle Corporation, started his closing keynote presentation at the Bicycle Leadership Conference by stripping off his sweater to reveal a No. 4 Brett Farve jersey and show his passionate support for the Green Bay Packers.

He closed his speech by quoting President Abraham Lincoln who said his pastor had not delivered an excellent sermon because “He did not ask us to do anything great tonight,” and then Burke delivered an impassioned challenge to BLC attendees to do something great and increase their support of bicycle advocacy programs to half-a-percent (0.5 percent) of their annual sales.

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BPSA crafts new Bicycle Owner’s Manual language to help its members meet the new standards

SAN DIEGO — January 19, 2008 — Cycling manufacturers are about to be regulated by an entire set of European-crafted standards, whether such companies know about or agree with those standards. In response, the BPSA has crafted a new Bicycle Owner’s Manual that meets these new standards and can be licensed by any member of the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association.

This was one of the key issues raised during the Friday afternoon session of the 11th annual Bicycle Leadership Conference being held this weekend in this sun-drenched southern California coastal city.

According to Bob Margevicius, head of the Safety Committee for the BPSA (presenters of the BLC event), the BPSA-led effort took the better part of 2008 to craft the language, look and feel for the new manual, an effort he feels will meet all aspects of the implementation date for the looming standards.

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It’s just after midnight, early Friday morning, and Chip and I are in Lumberton, N.C. for a day-long strategy and planning meeting with our new SOAR Communications client: The Tour of America.

We helped TTOA with its initial press conference and publicity efforts back in September at Interbike, and we’ve now been awarded a contract to handle all of the PR efforts for The Tour of America.

We distributed a news release yesterday announcing plans for a new, shortened race route (21 days, approximately 2,200 miles) for The Tour of America. A copy of the release can be found here at Bicycle.net, while some of the media outlets that have picked up the story include VeloNews, BikeRadar, CyclingNews.com, the Orlando Sentinel and Cincinnati Enquirer, among others.

Although there’s much to be done between now and September 2008 (the planned launch for the inaugural race), we’re excited to be on board and help move The Tour of America forward.

Media now have easier access to suggested retail prices, product images (low and high res) and spec sheets for Scott USA merchandise as a result of a newly launched marketing/press only Web site and portal.

Scott USA marketing team members say they hope the site will help on-deadline media get a logo or product fact quickly without having to rely on a member of the marketing team. (See today’s BRAIN article)

From my perspective, this Web site is yet another example of bike industry leaders showing the importance of using the Internet to better communicate with media and how better business practices can improve the industry’s environmental impact, one company at a time.

A few years ago, the Interbike Expo announced its Green Steps program. The program offsets energy used to operate the show by purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (REC), recycling aisle and booth carpeting and increasing electronic communication with exhibitors, attendees and media.

New this year, Interbike provided downloadable press kits of more than 40 participating exhibitors for the media to cut down on the amount paper used in the press room.

My hat goes off to these two companies who know how to work with the media and protect the environment as well!

Wow. It’s been a busy few months since my last post on September 20. I need to learn how to juggle blogging, while at the same time serving our clients.

I have a lot of things I’d like to blog about since my last post, for example, working with the media at Interbike, meeting my cycling hero Greg LeMond in the Media Center at the show, and taking a road trip vacation to Colorado – mountain biking and hiking along the way, etc. I’ll write about those later.

This week was a busy week, but a good one. Monday, November 12, we were in New York City for the PepCom Digital Focus media reception. We took our new client, Delta 7 Sports. They make a $12,000 carbon fiber/Kevlar reinforced Arantix mountain bike using a unique tube design called IsoTruss. Before the evening event, we met with “Popular Science” and “The Wall Street Journal.” The staff at both publications were very interested in the Arantix and its IsoTruss technology for possible stories.

Following those meetings we went to PepCom. Even though PepCom was predominately a “digital” high-tech event, we knew the media outlets slated to attend would also be interested in the IsoTruss, because of its highly engineered, science-based, well thought out design.

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I’ve been putting off writing something for our blog for a couple of reasons. One, life here at SOAR has been incredibly busy. Our biggest client, Interbike, is having their annual bicycle tradeshow in Las Vegas in 4 days and we have spent the last couple of months ramping up for that. The other reason is, I’m new to blogging, and I wasn’t sure I had anything interesting or significant to post. Now I do.

I’m bummed. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found Landis guilty of doping (see AP story here). I haven’t ridden regularly in a while, but I’m still an avid fan of cycling and racing. My wife and I cheered loudly at the TV during Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour, only to stare silently again later while learning that Landis was accused of doping.

I’m not even going to pretend to understand the facts surrounding the case and spout my opinion here in this post. I’m just bummed for Landis, racers in general and for recreational cyclists and potential recreational cyclists who might think twice about participating in a tainted activity.

The news about Landis will make for an interesting next few weeks, especially with the industry’s largest trade show, Interbike, and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Championships taking place at the same time. I’m sure everyone will be talking about the verdict and will have an opinion.

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By the way, we have filled the open job position at SOAR Communications.

Maura Lansford, formerly (and officially) an Assistant Account Executive at Politis Communications, has accepted the full-time position as an AAE at SOAR Communications.

Maura has been actively involved in supporting SOAR clients on an as-needed basis almost since joining Politis Communications. She also proved invaluable in almost single-handedly overseeing media registration for Interbike 2006.

So . . . formally, the position at SOAR Communications is now closed.

However, Politis Communications is now looking for two or more account reps. PR/journalism background preferred. Good writing skills a must.

Any ideas? Reach me via email at dpolitis (at) politis.com or by calling 801-523-3730 xt. 11.