Hi there. By the time you’re reading this, The Field will be live. What is The Field? It’s a new digital publication for men and women inspired by design and the modern outdoor movement. Check it out at thefieldmag.com. It’s the best, and exactly what you want in a website about attractive outdoor stuff. We have beautiful pictures of beautiful places, articles about adventure, interviews with smart people, gear reviews, product news and other great stuff contributed by professional athletes, award-winning photographers and journalists, and other talented, non-kooky outdoors people like myself.
Okay, now that that sweet self promo bit is out of the way, let’s indirectly dive into what ideas shaped The Field and how the landscape of the outdoor industry is evolving. As a youngster in the Pacific Northwest, the forest was literally my backyard. I slept outside nearly every summer night and learned to fly fish before I was 10. I rode bicycles and skateboarded daily, and spent winters and summers alike snowboarding, thanks to Mt. Hood’s year-round snowfield. Yet at no point in my 20-something years in the Northwest did I ever climb a mountain, or own dedicated hiking boots or even a tent. I was outdoorsy as could be without actually relating to the outdoor industry’s most well-known core brands. Even now, as an adult living and working in New York City with the means to take on more ambitious adventures, my interest in the outdoors remains focused on the immediately relevant and aesthetically inclined. And I don’t think this experience is singular.
For decades, the outdoor industry has championed the extreme and intimidating, which in turn has undoubtedly kept many timid city dwellers from discovering a love for nature. All too easy does the mind’s eye conjure up images of mountaineering and backcountry exploration when asked to imagine the outdoors. Most major outdoor brands have built their legacy on supplying gear for such expert-only environments. Similarly, most longstanding outdoor publications focus heavily on this ultra niche audience as well. Though save for a select few, most young people are not interacting with the outdoors in such an aggressive way. They seek a more accessible, more casual relationship with nature. Now more than ever, people are preferring to identify not with a single activity—skiing, hiking, camping, cycling, rock climbing—but rather as a general lover of the outdoors and a liver of an active lifestyle.
In return, the relatively recent rise of the generalist outdoor brand has been prolific, as has the response of many enduring brands in introducing more urban-minded lines. This “new” sweet spot—where design and function are held in equal accord, and equipment and apparel function well in all different environments—is a natural evolution of the industry, reflecting a consumer that’s more interested in a lifestyle that’s attainable rather than purely aspirational.
This shift may also be impacting what people want to get from the magazines, social media accounts and brands they follow. Audiences are increasingly interested in content that is relatable and accessible. Mountaineering is awesome, but so is sharing a few cold ones around a campfire with close friends, and riding a bike around town simply for the fun of it. Sure, I’m a sucker for dreamy images of far flung destinations and rare Japanese gear as much as the next guy—the unobtainable will always hold a certain allure—but one can only find so much inspiration in articles exalting luxury sports cars and extravagant watches. A happy medium must be reached, where press release-generated product posts are balanced with insightful hands-on reviews, informative articles and of course, beautiful nature photography. After all, isn’t the end goal to inspire readers to get outside and explore the wild world for themselves?
Along these same lines, it seems there’s a growing distaste for the amount and quality of content that many media outlets are pumping out. The algorithmic listicles, clickbait headlines and other publishing techniques that assume the consumer is as mindless as the content is polarizing—it earns publishers millions on ad revenue alone yet drives intelligent audiences to seek a better experience elsewhere. Many smaller, independent publishers are itching for change, too. Take, for example, digital natives Highsnobiety and Hypebeast, two sites that have long relied on content aggregation as their bread and butter. Both have begun putting considerable resources into video and long form articles. And metrics show it’s working, as page views and engagement time is up and brand loyalty no doubt alongside it.
As the landscape continues to shift, for many, collaboration maybe become central to their content strategy. Individuals have become brands—a statement you’ve read too many times already I’m sure—and heavyweight personalities now bring with them an audience of their own. As we continue to see, some the most sought-after content creators are as likely to be single individuals with an iPhone as they are established creative studios and media conglomerates. And with audiences becoming more open to consuming different types of content across different platforms and publications—and advertisers opening up to experimental campaigns and association-based programs—the opportunity for mutually beneficial collaboration is ripe.
So, as a content creator, why not maximize the number of eyes that see your work? Does the word “exclusive” hold any weight anymore? In a world where embargos are broken without consequence and content is stolen the moment it’s published, it’d be tough to argue for it. Should you choose to collaborate, it’s key to select partners carefully, as to not saturate a single audience, but rather reach multiple that may not otherwise overlap. One such publisher that relies heavily on this syndication model is Hearst Digital Media, which routinely shares content unedited across titles as varied as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Esquire, to name a few. Is William Randolph Hearst rolling over in his grave? Who knows. Is HDM making a killing and growing their audiences significantly day by day? Yes. The proof is in the pudding.
So really, the takeaway here is that things have been and will continue to change, and it’s super exciting. And if you feel like you have content fatigue, stop reading bullshit websites and go outside and run around a bit. Being elastic and having an open mind is the key to surviving and thriving in the near future. And beyond that? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
This article was originally published in RANGE Magazine Issue Four.
Image by Ian Durkin.
GRAHAM HIEMSTRA