Backcountry Marketing

Bold Creative Is a Growth Strategy

Creative is often treated as an expense. Joe Prebich, the VP of Benchmade Knife Company,  believes the best creative can become one of a brand's most valuable growth asse

Can Organic Content Drive Business Growth? | Episode 1

In the first episode of the Relevance Project, Cole sits down with the teams at SkyGOAT, Kitworks, and Loon'r to understand where each brand is starting, what they want o

How Brands Grow According to Research

Professor Jenni Romaniuk, Research Professor and Associate Director at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Adelaide University, breaks down the science behind how brands are re

The Forces Reshaping Marketing | The Relevance Project

Cole shares the thinking behind The Relevance Project and why he believes relevance has become one of the most important competitive advantages available to brands today.

Meet the Three Brands | The Relevance Project

After reviewing 19 brand applications, Port Side has selected three brands to work with: Kitworks, loon'r, and SkyGOAT.  The Relevance Project is a public experiment ex

Marketing Sucks | Andy Pearson from Liquid Death

Andy Pearson, VP of Creative at Liquid Death, explains why brands should stop thinking like advertisers and start thinking like entertainers. We dive into how Liquid Deat

15 Brands Have Applied | The Relevance Project

The Relevance Project is underway! 15 brands have applied to be considered. If you want to apply, reach out to us and submit your application by June 26th.    About:

Let's Build in Public | The Organic Content Experiment

In this solo episode, Cole shares why he believes many outdoor brands already possess something unique beneath the surface, but struggle to translate that uniqueness into

Why Outdoor Brands Still Get Social Wrong | Former Head of Social at Columbia

Laura Jastram-Wrend joins Cole live at the HikeExpo to discuss what most outdoor brands are still getting wrong about the power of social.  Laura breaks down why social s

Save $10,000 a Month With Organic

Cole hit the floor at the HikeExpo to interview founders about the reality of running social at a small brand. Is there an alternative to spending $10,000 a month on paid

Brand Is Social, Social Is Brand: How Outdoor Brands Can Rethink Social Media

Maren Hamilton, former Head of Social at The North Face and current Director of Global Brand and Community at popFly. We break down her core thesis: brand is social and s

Resilient Brands Build Audiences

Resilient businesses are built by building an audience. In this solo episode, Cole Heilborn challenges the assumption that people inherently care about brand campaigns,

How DECKED Is Trying To Balance Brand and Performance

In this episode, Greg Randolph, VP of Marketing at DECKED, and Bridget Noonan, Senior Brand Director at DECKED, break down one of the biggest tensions in modern marketing

Great Creative Doesn't Start With The Algorithm

What is the value of great creative, and what happens when brands let marketing metrics dictate the work before the idea is even fully formed? In this episode, Cole sit

How to Stand Out When Everyone Has the Same Origin Story

Episode Description Most outdoor brands share a similar origin story: a founder identifies a need in the wild, builds a product in a garage, and grows a company from th

Are Brand Impressions Irrelevant?

Episode Description In this episode, host Cole Heilborn sits down with Ryan Watson, CMO and COO at MTNTOUGH Fitness Labs, to unpack a hot take that should make every ou

Navigating Change: Chris Burkard on Creativity, Risk, and Authenticity

In this episode (initially aired on June 18th, 2025), Cole sits down with Chris Burkard—photographer, creative director, adventurer, and storyteller. Chris shares his uni

Why "Brand" Has Lost Its Meaning

Every company has a brand, but very few have built one intentionally or with differentiation. We use the word "brand" interchangeably with "company," when in reality most

Brand Marketing is a Comfortable Lie Without Product Marketing

Does the outdoor industry overindex on brand? Alex Maier, President of OnWater, joins the show to challenge one of the outdoor industry's biggest assumptions: that brand

2025, The Year that Almost Broke Us

2025, almost broke Port Side as a company. But we've grown, grown some more and have rebuilt the business from the ground up. In this episode, Cole shares a raw behind th