YOUR STORY MATTERS - LET US HELP YOU TELL IT
YOUR STORY MATTERS; LET US HELP YOU TELL IT
Adventure Stuffs is a team of creative communicators who are passionate about telling your story.
NOT YOUR FATHER’S CONTENT CREATORS Decades ago, advertisers began to pick up on something huge. What they discovered would go on to change the face of advertising forever. This revolutionary discovery was simple; whoever tells the best story controls the conversation. The age of two page magazine pieces with 400 words of product description was set aside for 15 second TV spots that made people laugh. With this new idea in the marketplace, brands and corporations began demanding content that consumers WANTED to see. This demand created countless start-up production companies and creative firms to carry out these requests for agencies and various brands. This system was expensive but saw huge returns on brand growth and profits. Fast forward decades later to the present and many agencies and brands continue to use these same production houses and creative firms. This system is outdated and continues to be expensive. New technology, such as social media, has changed the market landscape, and a new landscape demands a new breed of content creators -- creators that understand the demands of today’s marketplace and can do the job efficiently with the needs of the modern consumer in mind. The team at Adventure Stuffs is just that: we are the content creators for today’s market.
CONTENT CREATON We create story-driven content to help you reach your target audience.
STORYTELLING Your story is unique, so our team of experienced photographers, filmmakers, and designers craft ways to communicate your unique story.
PRODUCT IMAGING Your product is the main character in your story. Let us help you show it off.
WHAT WE DO Product Imaging Content Creation Social Media Campaigns Video Production Storytelling Social Content Design Instagram Sponsered Post Creation Creative Consulting Strategic Campaign Management Snapchat Content Creation
WHY STORY MATTERS TO US And Why it Should Matter to You Too
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randing. This is arguably the business buzzword of the 21st century. Countless books, seminars, and consulting agencies dedicate their everyday to developing what this word means and what it’s best practices are for building profitable businesses. Everyone is telling you to care about it, but this word is still largely ambiguous. Sure, people throw the word around, but few people truly understand what goes into building a fantastic brand. So why should you care? The team at Adventure Stuffs does not claim to be masters of branding. We understand that there is a wide variety of variables that influence a particular brand, and we definitely do not have the answer to all of those questions. What we do understand is storytelling and content creation...and we’re good at it. Our team holds to the important principle that whoever tells the best story controls the conversation. We create content that your audience is excited about and
content that creates conversation. Creating conversation is crucial in building a profitable brand. Word-of-mouth has proven time and time again to be any business’s best friend. It is, by far,v the most effective way to share a message and have it spread. If you cannot generate word of mouth as a brand, you can forget any opportunity to grow your brand. In short, it “PEOPLE doesn’t matter how good your DON’T website is, if peoSHARE ADS, ple aren’t talking about it you are THEY SHARE wasting your STORIES.” time. Our team understands that good stories get shared. People don’t share ads, they share stories. Our team is dedicated to helping you tell the best story; it’s what we do best.
This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ve had the incredible opportunity to work with a wide range of brands in our short existance. From outdoor apparell to skateboard makers, we can tell anyone’s story.
PENNY SKATEBOARDS O Product Imaging
ur journey with Penny Skateboards was full of excitement. From high-speed skating down the hills in Olympic Nat’l Park in Washington, to the coastline slow-rolling in Los Angeles, every day presented new things to do and learn from. Penny gave us ten boards from their upcoming line for us to ride and shoot throughout our trip. We were tasked with product, in-situation, and riding shots of the boards. Our shoots would usually consist of a group of people hanging out with their boards, getting ready to go for a ride. We would photograph the whole process of getting out of the car, grabbing the boards, and jumping on the boards. Our skating abilities improved as well as our photos. It was a blast skating through some of the most beautiful parts of the US, working with one of the coolest and most innovative skate companies in
the world. For Penny, we were tasked with creating a series of photos for a product launch campaign. Throughout the trip we created hundreds of images, many of them being used for Penny’s social media content. Penny used our photos as homepage banners during the launch of their product and in various announcement graphics. The familiar North American locations gave this international brand a presence to customers inside the United States. The work that we did for Penny enabled them to show their new product as a character in a greater story. The social content we provided enabled Penny Board’s audience to connect with the adventures that we were on, which created a sharable conversation about their new product line.
RUMPL R Social Content Creation
umpl is just one of those brands that you can’t help but love; it wasn’t too difficult to think of how to creatively shoot them because we were literally using them everyday. One particular night that they were very useful was when we camped on the beach in La Push. It was chilly and windy so we always had one of them draped around us as we walked the beach or relaxed next to the fire. Our game plan was to just get shots of Rumpl products genuinely in use. Although La Push was probably our favorite location for this product, we shot these blankets anywhere and everywhere we went. Every single hike or backcountry camping outing we went on, they went with us. It wasn’t a question
of how do we fit the Rumpl’s in our bags; it was a question of how do we fit the food in our bags after we pack the Rumpl’s. We brought them to places like the Grand Tetons, Yosemite, Big Sur, and many more. Most of us didn’t even use our sleeping bags after we started sleeping with these. A Rumpl is a travel essential; life is better with these things. Rumpl approached our team needing content creation for their social platforms. We were able to produce images all across the United States, giving Rumpl a complete story to be able to share with all of there followers. Our content was shared across social platforms, increasing a digital word of mouth conversation about Rumpl blankets.
HEIMPLANET Content Creation/ Product Imaging
O
ne of the best things about what we do is working with new, innovative, and inspiring brands. Heimplanet is without a doubt one of those brands. As a German tent maker who has truly engineered a revolutionary way to camp, Heimplanet is changing the way we experience the outdoors. Their inflatable frame tents are distinct to say the least, and provide a unique opportunity to tell a story. We were tasked by Heimplanet to bring their product to a variety of iconic North American locations, and tell stories using there tents. We successfully captured images from all of the places that we visited, and delivered those images to our friends at Heimplanet.
LEMS SHOES L Storytelling and Digital Content Creation
ems Shoes has broken into the outdoor apparel market in the last year. With their ultra minimalist design, they give hikers an alternative to bulky heavy hiking shoes while on the trail. We teamed up with Lems this summer to show off just how versatile and light these shoes are. On the road, it is vital to have a pair of shoes that can do it all. From hiking the rocky trails of Yosemite to trudging through the Great Sand Dunes, these shoes could do it all. We wanted to tell a story with Lems, a story about the shoe that can do it all, and look good doing it. By the end of our road trip, our shoes had been through it all and they had the marks to show it. They were easy to pack away and
light as a feather. Versatility is key, and we wanted to show that off with these shoes. Lems is a vibrant brand, with an already vibrant story to tell. Our team was able to craft a long blog post for the Lems website that was shared on their social platforms. The blog was shared and viewed by a number of people, and gave Lems a feature story for the summer. With Lems we truly set out to create a story that as worth sharing. The story we helped Lems tell was shared by others because it wasn’t an ad but a narrative. This put Lems in the middle of digital and face to face conversation, increasing their word of mouth reach amongst their audience.
GRANITE GEAR A
company born in the boundary water of Minnesota, Granite Gear makes hiking packs in a way all their own. We took our Granite Gear packs deep into every national park we visited. For Granite Gear, our goal was to produce content for them that they couldn’t resist. We wanted to throw just about any scenario at these packs to see what they could do. Whether we hiked for 2 miles or 10, a Granite Gear pack was always on our back. We wanted the packs to equip us with the opportunity to make memories and tell stories. We stored our life in these packs for 40 days, and they held us every step of the way. Granite gear approached us to create content for their new line of Lutsen bags. Over the course of a few weeks we shot the bags in every possible climate across the U.S. This gave Granite Gear the resources they needed to produce a successful launch campaign for their new line of packs.
SNOW PEAK W
e were excited when we heard that we were going to get to do some work for Snow Peak. Admittedly, some of that excitement was because we really needed some more cookware for our trip; however, shooting their products turned out to be awesome because it was arguably one of the most fun locations we went to. We showed up to the Great Sand Dunes right before sunset. Everything there seems calm until you step out into valley right in front of the dunes and you start getting blasted in the face with sand. It didn’t take long for us to figure out that without glasses and a shirt wrapped around your face you weren’t going to have a good time. We were finding sand everywhere sand could be for days after that. Our initial plan was to set up a campsite across the first ridge of the dunes until we figured out how long of a trek that would be. We ended up sitting down at the bottom of the ridge and attempted to brew up some coffee while the wind and sand whipped around us. We wanted to be able to take Snow Peak products to a place and environment most people aren’t willing to go to. Our goal is to get shots of these products in action in real places; we don’t settle for a whitewashed studio with synthetic lighting. After a few hours in the dunes we all came back tired and windburned but it was well worth it for the shots.
PROOF EYEWEAR
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roof Eyewear had a pretty simple mission for us. That mission was to take really good photos of their product. Outside of the product imaging we were tasked with producing, we were able to use visual storytelling to add on to the story that proof was telling. We wanted the sunglasses to appear to be part of a greater narrative. The greater narrative is what consumers would be talking about, but this narrative would have Proof Sunglasses as the main character. Proof Eyewear supplied each member of our team with high quality uv unglasses for our trip. We each chose our own pair to bring along and shoot during our adventures. They came in handy in the bright snowy trails in Montana and the windy, sandy beaches of southern California. These products were incredibly easy to shoot because they were already a part of what we wore everyday. Proof eyeywear was truly a joy to shoot. The unique product gave us an excellent angle to tell a compelling story. We are more than thrilled we were able to work with them, and we hope to produce more projects for them in the future.
WORD NOTE BOOKS L
ittle books with big potential. That’s the idea that went into the work we did for Word Notebooks. This New York based bookmaker used our team to capture new product images of different book designs. The books provided a unique opportunity for interesting images. Large, sweeping landscapes made the books seem like they were bigger than the cover designs that were on them. Ideally, we wanted to show the potential of what someone can do with a notebook. We wanted to harness the wonder of the outdoors and pair it with the wonder of a really good idea. Word used the images we produced for their social platforms.
STEVEN REESE Creative Director, Photographer, Filmmaker, Designer
NOLAN CLOUGH Social Media Director, Photographer, Designer
CHAD FINNESAND Executive Director, Photographer, Filmmaker, Designer
NICK STONE
Operations Director, Photographer, Account Manager
It started with a
ROAD TRIP
I
n the summer of 2015, I started planning a road trip. This wasn’t just going to be a little week long get-away, this was going to be the road trip of a lifetime. We are talking 40 days, 15+ states, and dozens of national and state parks. This was going to be a trip to remember. At the time, I had no intention of doing anything but seeing the country and living out of a car with my best friends; however, as the trip began to get closer, things began to change. As a freelance photographer and filmmaker, I was excited about the prospect of the images I would be able to capture on this trip, but I was more excited about the stories I would be able to tell. I wasn’t alone in this, my friends were also the creative type, and they loved telling stories and creating beautiful things too. Another thing that we all had in common is that we were college students. Just as the stereotype goes, we had no money. So how on earth were we going to pay for a 40 day road trip? As we put our heads together to answer this question, we began to all have an idea. The idea was simple: we leverage the story of our trip for a brand or product that will in turn subsidize the cost of our trip. After all, we were all photographers, designers, filmmakers, and marketing majors, so this seemed like the perfect storm. We quickly sat down and began building a brand for our trip. We built a website and started emailing, calling, and sending our information to any person who looked like they might care. When all was said and done we contacted over 100 brands, products, and vendors trying to get them to get on board. We had no portfolio, no experience, and no references... and we loved it. After months of calls and email exchanges, we had nailed down 8 different brands that were interested in being a part of our trip. We were ecstatic. You would have thought we
had just landed the Coca-Cola account. We started out on our journey in July of 2016. The 40 day road trip gave us a rigourous crash course in content creation for actual brands. We weren’t in a classroom anymore. The trip turned out to have way more twists and turns then we wanted or expected. Two broken windows from two separate robberies, a failed alternator, and national park citations placed obstacles in our path that tested our cohesiveness as a team, and our ability to work creatively under pressure.
In addition to memories, this trip gave us experience. Real brands, real budgets, and real projects made us more than just college kids on a road trip. This trip made us qualified creative professionals.
by STEVEN REESE
“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.� -Lewis Carroll