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Understanding the Overland Industry · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
0:11
Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm joined today by my co
0:14
Speaker 1: host Brian mcvickers. Brian's coming on this podcast because we
0:18
Speaker 1: want to specifically talk about the overland industry as a whole.
0:22
Speaker 1: We want to discuss the opportunities that we believe exists
0:25
Speaker 1: within the marketplace, kind of the origin story of overlanding
0:29
Speaker 1: in North America, where we see that there are opportunities
0:32
Speaker 1: for businesses to engage with this new audience, where we're
0:36
Speaker 1: seeing the industry heading trends that we're seeing in the industry,
0:40
Speaker 1: things that we're seeing people struggle with, and things that
0:42
Speaker 1: we see people being successful with. We also talk about
0:45
Speaker 1: different opportunities for travelers to earn an income while on
0:48
Speaker 1: the road. So this is a very wide ranging conversation
0:51
Speaker 1: about the scope and the opportunities within the overland industry
0:55
Speaker 1: in North America and the world. This content is brought
0:59
Speaker 1: to you by Overland Journal, our premium quality print publication.
1:04
Speaker 1: The magazine was founded in two thousand and six with
1:07
Speaker 1: the goal of providing independent equipment and vehicle reviews, along
1:12
Speaker 1: with the most stunning adventures and photography. We care deeply
1:17
Speaker 1: about the countries and cultures we visit and share our
1:20
Speaker 1: experiences freely with our readers. We also have zero averatorial
1:26
Speaker 1: policy and do not accept any advertiser compensation for our reviews.
1:31
Speaker 1: By subscribing to Overland Journal, you're helping to support our
1:35
Speaker 1: employee owned and veteran owned publication. Your support also provides
1:41
Speaker 1: resources and funding for content like you are watching or
1:45
Speaker 1: listening to right now. You can subscribe directly on our
1:49
Speaker 1: website at Overland Journal dot com. Brian, thanks so much
1:55
Speaker 1: for being on this podcast with me. You have had
1:58
Speaker 1: you have had a run of podcast with us going
2:01
Speaker 1: on to my third one row that's right, which is
2:04
Speaker 1: which is awesome, And a lot of that is because
2:06
Speaker 1: you do have so much experience and it lends itself
2:09
Speaker 1: perfectly to this conversation. One of the things that I've
2:12
Speaker 1: realized in recent years is that there are so many
2:14
Speaker 1: people that are passionate about overlanding and they want to
2:17
Speaker 1: be connected in with the industry in some way. Some
2:20
Speaker 1: of them have even started small businesses, or there are
2:23
Speaker 1: people that are passionate about overlanding that work for a
2:26
Speaker 1: larger company that are helping to try to guide their
2:29
Speaker 1: organization towards participating in this rapidly growing space. We thought
2:33
Speaker 1: it would be helpful for those that anyone who's ever
2:36
Speaker 1: thought about how do I make a living in overlanding,
2:38
Speaker 1: how do I start a business in overlanding, what opportunities
2:42
Speaker 1: exist in the overlanding space for new businesses, And then,
2:46
Speaker 1: more importantly, because we've been doing this for over twenty years,
2:50
Speaker 1: the things that we have learned along the way that
2:52
Speaker 1: people have really struggled with. There have been some doors
2:55
Speaker 1: that have closed that are it's too expensive to come
2:57
Speaker 1: into the space now unless you're a much larger organization.
3:00
Speaker 1: But we do believe that there's a lot of opportunity
3:02
Speaker 1: that exists, and we thought it might be helpful for
3:05
Speaker 1: our listeners that are interested in how could I make
3:08
Speaker 1: a living traveling around the world in how to do that.
3:11
Speaker 1: But then also we know that there are lots of
3:13
Speaker 1: partners and there's people that are passionate about the industry
3:16
Speaker 1: that make products that we might be able to help
3:19
Speaker 1: them be more successful in some way by what we
3:22
Speaker 1: share today. So that's really the goal.
3:24
Speaker 2: There's a tremendous amount of potential right now. There's continuous growth.
3:28
Speaker 2: We've seen thousands of companies come into the space. Over
3:31
Speaker 2: the past two decades, I'd say eighty percent of them
3:34
Speaker 2: have found a good foothold, and we've seen even more
3:36
Speaker 2: people come in and out of the space, And so
3:39
Speaker 2: there's still a lot of opportunity from everything from a
3:42
Speaker 2: big corporation to a mom and pop business to an
3:45
Speaker 2: individual that's right who can even just get it in
3:48
Speaker 2: as a journalist's right. So there's a lot of opportunity
3:51
Speaker 2: around the space and around the activity.
3:53
Speaker 1: Right and at all levels of knowledge and expertise. And
3:57
Speaker 1: I think that the thing that's the most key is
3:59
Speaker 1: being on theuthentic to who you are. So I think
4:02
Speaker 1: that an influencer could be very successful in this in
4:05
Speaker 1: the space just by saying I don't know anything and
4:08
Speaker 1: this is my story of trying to learn things as
4:11
Speaker 1: I go along. The ones that we always see struggle
4:13
Speaker 1: are the ones that don't know anything and pretend that
4:16
Speaker 1: they do. I've not seen one of them make it
4:18
Speaker 1: through the fire. They all end up kind of washing out,
4:21
Speaker 1: their credit cards are maxed out.
4:22
Speaker 2: And yeah, it comes down to the end consumer in
4:26
Speaker 2: the space. So the consumer that's digesting the content, reading
4:30
Speaker 2: the content, viewing the content, and also making the purchases.
4:33
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, it's a very savvy customer.
4:36
Speaker 1: They are right.
4:37
Speaker 2: They're very highly educated, they're very affluent, They're very interested
4:42
Speaker 2: in quality for price. They want to maximize their time
4:46
Speaker 2: in the activity, and so they make assurances for that.
4:50
Speaker 2: So they're going to buy the higher quality product because
4:52
Speaker 2: they know they can rely on it and they're not
4:54
Speaker 2: going to be out in the middle of their adventure
4:56
Speaker 2: dealing with something that doesn't work.
4:57
Speaker 1: There's lots of reasons why quality matters within this space,
5:00
Speaker 1: and it's something that we've learned through our demographic studies,
5:04
Speaker 1: through our surveys of the audience and the industry that
5:06
Speaker 1: we've done. We've done many of them through the years,
5:08
Speaker 1: so we're going to be sharing some of that and
5:10
Speaker 1: if you have specific questions that come up through the
5:13
Speaker 1: podcast and you'd like to have a conversation, please feel
5:16
Speaker 1: free to reach out to Brian. He'll provide his information
5:19
Speaker 1: at the end. Because we do want to be a
5:21
Speaker 1: support to the industry. It's important to us as it
5:23
Speaker 1: continues to grow. It's also good to kind of give
5:26
Speaker 1: a frame of reference around the history of overlanding. We've
5:28
Speaker 1: oftentimes been credited with starting overlanding in North America. That
5:32
Speaker 1: absolutely isn't the case. We certainly were the first to
5:35
Speaker 1: create the sandbox where there was actually started talking about it.
5:38
Speaker 1: We were the first to actually create the foundation of
5:41
Speaker 1: an industry. But overlanding has been going on in North
5:45
Speaker 1: America for a very long time by people that far
5:48
Speaker 1: predate us or even the twenty years that we have
5:50
Speaker 1: in the industry. You think of Gary and Monica Westcott
5:53
Speaker 1: and their travels around the world. Those are the two
5:55
Speaker 1: that inspired me in the very beginning, and they were
5:58
Speaker 1: already well into their overlanding career. So there are people
6:01
Speaker 1: that have forgotten more about overlanding than I've ever learned.
6:06
Speaker 1: But the one thing that we have worked really hard
6:09
Speaker 1: from the very beginning is to help to foster and
6:13
Speaker 1: create an industry, which is something that had not really
6:16
Speaker 1: been done before about the mid two thousands. So when
6:20
Speaker 1: we look at the history of overlanding, at least within
6:22
Speaker 1: the context of North America, it's still in its infancy.
6:25
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to hear people say like, oh, I
6:27
Speaker 1: have we reached peak overlanding, And I think it's a
6:30
Speaker 1: lot of times the people that are saying that are
6:32
Speaker 1: the ones who've been around a little while, and it
6:34
Speaker 1: seems like that it's hit peak overlanding, or that it's
6:37
Speaker 1: so popular now that it's going to do nothing but decline.
6:40
Speaker 1: But the thing that we understand by understanding the industry
6:43
Speaker 1: and by surveying the industry is that we're actually just
6:46
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the rise of the industry. And
6:50
Speaker 1: that is because overlanding is now part of the narrative
6:54
Speaker 1: of large companies like OEM manufacturers.
6:56
Speaker 2: The terminology is being used more than I've ever seen
7:00
Speaker 2: by companies and people who I'd never thought would identify
7:03
Speaker 2: with it.
7:04
Speaker 1: And those are really easy things to understand. If you
7:06
Speaker 1: go into there are Google tools that allow you to
7:09
Speaker 1: search for search terms, so you can do the search
7:12
Speaker 1: term of overlanding and you can see the trajectory. You
7:15
Speaker 1: could see the trajectory that it's on. So there are
7:18
Speaker 1: people that have opinions, and there are people who actually
7:20
Speaker 1: spend the time to understand the data. And when you
7:23
Speaker 1: have within the last year, when you have a manufacturer
7:25
Speaker 1: like Toyota saying we are all in on overlanding, that
7:29
Speaker 1: is a very significant indicator of at least the next
7:33
Speaker 1: five to ten years because of their planning. That's correct,
7:35
Speaker 1: their planning schedule and their product planning. So when you
7:38
Speaker 1: think of them launching models, we are at a minimum
7:43
Speaker 1: ten years away from anything that could be remotely looking
7:46
Speaker 1: like peak overlanding.
7:47
Speaker 2: People need to understand that when a company like Toyota
7:50
Speaker 2: identifies with it and starts talking about it, it is
7:53
Speaker 2: a few years out. Even though they might have an
7:55
Speaker 2: example like Sema. They last year they are the trail
7:59
Speaker 2: hunter trail Hunter, and a lot of people looked at
8:01
Speaker 2: that and said, well, that's either appreciated it for what
8:04
Speaker 2: it was or you said it wasn't quite right. But
8:06
Speaker 2: it's an evolution, right, So they're kind of saying, hey,
8:10
Speaker 2: we're in on it, and here's an example of our commitment,
8:14
Speaker 2: and you've got to give that some fake. Well, I
8:15
Speaker 2: know that in the next five six years they're just
8:18
Speaker 2: going to hit it out of the park.
8:19
Speaker 1: And also they want to sell cars, right, so they're
8:21
Speaker 1: not going to bring like the car that you and
8:23
Speaker 1: I want to buy from Toyota as a seventy series
8:25
Speaker 1: land Cruiser. But it's like you and me and Greg
8:27
Speaker 1: Miller and Clay Croft and a couple of there's literally
8:30
Speaker 1: a couple of handfuls of guys that are going to
8:32
Speaker 1: actually go and buy that vehicle, whereas the feel of
8:35
Speaker 1: the masses, they do, and they do that through vehicles
8:38
Speaker 1: like the New Land Cruiser, this new two fifty, So
8:40
Speaker 1: it does check a lot of the boxes that we
8:43
Speaker 1: have as overland travelers. But it's also going to be
8:45
Speaker 1: exciting and interesting for a very large market of people.
8:49
Speaker 1: And another great example of that is Grenadier. So we
8:52
Speaker 1: now have in twenty twenty three, a brand new car company.
8:56
Speaker 1: Their sole objective is to make some of the best
8:59
Speaker 1: overlanding vehicles in the world. It's a brand new card
9:03
Speaker 1: off to a good start. They are. They've got seven
9:05
Speaker 1: thousand orders here in the United States, so they're off
9:08
Speaker 1: to a good start, which is very exciting for me
9:10
Speaker 1: to see. So it's really important to understand the scope
9:13
Speaker 1: of the industry and also where it started. We have
9:16
Speaker 1: seen a lot of success and the ones that have
9:19
Speaker 1: been the most successfuls are the ones that are the
9:22
Speaker 1: most authentic. So if you look at the Overland Expo,
9:24
Speaker 1: they still provide training, they still work very hard to
9:28
Speaker 1: engage with the community. They provide opportunities for people to
9:31
Speaker 1: participate in the event, even if they don't have the
9:34
Speaker 1: resources to do, so they can volunteer, they can teach classes.
9:38
Speaker 1: They really help support also around the world overland travelers.
9:42
Speaker 1: They're very careful to not just put the shiny object,
9:45
Speaker 1: the thing that's currently shiny on Instagram up on the stage.
9:49
Speaker 1: They actually want to bring in the people who have
9:51
Speaker 1: done it. And those are the things that make me
9:53
Speaker 1: so encouraged about the industry going forward. Yeah.
9:56
Speaker 2: So I think one of the things that I would
9:58
Speaker 2: help consumers, in businesses, everybody is if we touch very
10:02
Speaker 2: lightly on what is overlanding? Yeah, and what is the
10:06
Speaker 2: definition of overlanding, because that is the biggest question that
10:08
Speaker 2: I get from consumers from businesses trying to understand what's
10:13
Speaker 2: going on. We all have a little bit different nuanced
10:16
Speaker 2: definition of it. I think at the root of the definition,
10:19
Speaker 2: it's vehicle supported adventure. The foundation of it is a
10:23
Speaker 2: little bit more long term exploratory expedition trap.
10:27
Speaker 1: Right.
10:27
Speaker 2: But the modern day, everyday use of the idea of
10:32
Speaker 2: overlanding has been really just about getting out to support
10:36
Speaker 2: whatever your adventure might be, using your vehicle as almost
10:40
Speaker 2: kind of like as a backpack.
10:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we've used that description oftentimes, which is a
10:45
Speaker 1: backpack with wheels, because it does in most cases. I mean,
10:49
Speaker 1: I think of myself, I do a lot of hiking.
10:51
Speaker 1: I really like to be outdoors, and I use my
10:53
Speaker 1: overland vehicle to get me there, to help me camp
10:56
Speaker 1: at the trailhead, to go hiking, and then to come
10:59
Speaker 1: back at the end of the day. I also like
11:01
Speaker 1: to work remotely, so the vehicle becomes my home on
11:05
Speaker 1: wheels with starlink and everything else that facilitates me being
11:08
Speaker 1: able to work in remote, beautiful areas. So a vehicle
11:12
Speaker 1: based adventure travel is what overlanding is. But it's important
11:17
Speaker 1: to note that it's not like hop in the car
11:19
Speaker 1: in the van with your family and go on a
11:22
Speaker 1: road trip. A road trip is a road trip, sure,
11:24
Speaker 1: And also camping is camping. Car camping is car.
11:27
Speaker 2: Camping, and you don't need to camp to overland.
11:29
Speaker 1: That's correct, and it's important to note that you can
11:31
Speaker 1: go around the world without camping and still be an overlander.
11:34
Speaker 1: You've gone around the world in a vehicle, you certainly
11:37
Speaker 1: qualify as an overlander, but you don't have to camp
11:39
Speaker 1: at all. Some people for many reasons. Some people can't
11:42
Speaker 1: do it for health reasons. Some people just choose to
11:46
Speaker 1: not camp, or they don't enjoy it, or they want
11:48
Speaker 1: to camp inside their vehicle every night.
11:50
Speaker 2: Well, the idea of adventure travel and traveling the world,
11:54
Speaker 2: or traveling even your own state, your own county, you're
11:57
Speaker 2: stopping in those little towns, your experience and seeing the
12:00
Speaker 2: cultures and the food and interacting with the people. If
12:04
Speaker 2: you just focus on where am I going to make
12:06
Speaker 2: camp every night, you're never going to interact with that
12:09
Speaker 2: part of the world.
12:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and even that is okay. I think that
12:13
Speaker 1: there are people who have genuine overland experiences and their
12:16
Speaker 1: goal is to camp as remote as poll which is great,
12:19
Speaker 1: which is really I believe, a beautiful way to also
12:22
Speaker 1: overland travel. But the one thing that we can do
12:24
Speaker 1: as an industry is to continue to put perspective around
12:28
Speaker 1: that there is a definition of it. People who say
12:31
Speaker 1: overlanding is just car camping are people who have not
12:33
Speaker 1: traveled by their vehicle. They don't understand it. But we
12:36
Speaker 1: do understand it because we have the opportunity to travel
12:39
Speaker 1: around the world and we know that the goal of
12:41
Speaker 1: overlanding is vehicle based adventure travel. If we understand that
12:45
Speaker 1: it is vehicle based adventure travel, are you in your vehicle,
12:47
Speaker 1: are you using your vehicle for adventure? Are you traveling
12:50
Speaker 1: your overlanding?
12:52
Speaker 2: So, yeah, and I find it to be a very
12:55
Speaker 2: it's developed into a very.
12:56
Speaker 1: General term, which is also going to happen anytime something grows.
13:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I don't think that people in wanting
13:03
Speaker 2: to participate or companies wanting to participate, should get too
13:07
Speaker 2: hung up on how they're defining it and are they
13:10
Speaker 2: doing it the right way?
13:11
Speaker 1: Right.
13:11
Speaker 2: It's one of those things that you know, it's a
13:14
Speaker 2: general idea and the execution of it isn't really going
13:18
Speaker 2: to make or break if you're doing it the right
13:20
Speaker 2: way or not. There's really no wrong way to do it,
13:22
Speaker 2: and to do just be authentic.
13:24
Speaker 1: So where we see people lose the script a little
13:27
Speaker 1: bit around authenticity is that they will call their trip
13:32
Speaker 1: across California and expedition, or you go do a trip
13:36
Speaker 1: through someplace in Australia and you call it an expedition.
13:39
Speaker 1: If you don't have a scientific purpose, or if you're
13:42
Speaker 1: not doing something for the first time, if you're not
13:45
Speaker 1: literally exploring into the unknown, then don't use words like
13:48
Speaker 1: expedition because it does come across as inauthentic.
13:51
Speaker 2: Well, we've gone down that rabbit hole a lot over
13:54
Speaker 2: the last many, many years, and it also becomes well,
13:58
Speaker 2: what qualifies as an expedition into something like one of
14:02
Speaker 2: the societies, right, like the Royal Geographic Geographical Society, How
14:05
Speaker 2: did they define an expedition? And then we've even gone
14:09
Speaker 2: down the path of saying, well, what about a personal expedition?
14:12
Speaker 2: Yeah right, this is my first time doing something that
14:15
Speaker 2: a lot of people have already done, but to me
14:17
Speaker 2: this is a big deal.
14:18
Speaker 1: Yeah right, totally, And I remember some of my first trips.
14:22
Speaker 1: They certainly felt like an expedition, but it was because
14:25
Speaker 1: I was so inexperienced.
14:26
Speaker 2: We have to be careful not to take that away
14:28
Speaker 2: from no apps.
14:29
Speaker 1: We want them to have those experiences. But when we
14:32
Speaker 1: see it within the context of the industry, when we
14:34
Speaker 1: see it in the context of business, when people wonder
14:38
Speaker 1: why their narrative falls short, it's because oftentimes they're being inauthentic.
14:43
Speaker 1: Just say call it overlanding, that's fair enough, and instead
14:46
Speaker 1: of because we do want to honor people like Tom Shepherd,
14:50
Speaker 1: who was the first to drive across the Sahara in
14:53
Speaker 1: a vehicle, and they took all of these measurements. They
14:56
Speaker 1: gathered all of this scientific data and material along their
15:00
Speaker 1: trip that forwarded the human goal they are and that's
15:06
Speaker 1: why they're called expeditions. It's not about trying to gatekeep,
15:10
Speaker 1: because I don't use the word expedition unless I'm absolutely
15:13
Speaker 1: certain that I'm providing some other level of service in
15:17
Speaker 1: the activity. So there's been very few trips that I've
15:20
Speaker 1: done that would qualify. So I'm just myself personally. I
15:23
Speaker 1: tried to hold that to account, and I made that
15:25
Speaker 1: mistake early on. I called things expedition was an expedition
15:27
Speaker 1: because it felt like it to me. Well, but just
15:29
Speaker 1: because it feels like an expedition doesn't mean that it
15:31
Speaker 1: really is. Overlanding has really grown and the scope has changed,
15:38
Speaker 1: and we've had other events happen in recent years, like
15:41
Speaker 1: the COVID bump that happened in overlanding, which we'll talk
15:44
Speaker 1: about here in a few minutes. But Brian, can you
15:47
Speaker 1: talk about what you see is the size of the market.
15:51
Speaker 1: So let's start by how many individuals, how many people
15:55
Speaker 1: strong do you feel at least are tacitly engaged in overlanding?
15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is an actually actual measured number
16:02
Speaker 2: that we have access to through our research. And then
16:05
Speaker 2: part of it's a it's a bit anecdotal, right, just
16:08
Speaker 2: kind of gathering it from what we see and where
16:10
Speaker 2: we see it. So if you just take our properties alone,
16:14
Speaker 2: as a media company, we probably reach around eighteen million
16:18
Speaker 2: unique users or unique people every year globally.
16:21
Speaker 1: Globally.
16:22
Speaker 2: Now you add on things like other media companies, whether
16:26
Speaker 2: it's a publication or a film outlet like Expedition Overland.
16:31
Speaker 2: Then you look at the events, So the Overland expos,
16:34
Speaker 2: the more Expo, the Overland rallies, there's you know there,
16:38
Speaker 2: there's events popping up left and right. I think the
16:41
Speaker 2: last list of events I had related to the space,
16:44
Speaker 2: including the Van rallies, it was sixty four events is
16:47
Speaker 2: what I had on the list, and.
16:48
Speaker 1: That's a lot, and that in and of itself shows
16:52
Speaker 1: that how the industry is growing. And one of the
16:54
Speaker 1: things that I really love to see is the fact
16:56
Speaker 1: that the industry is not just so concentrated in the
16:59
Speaker 1: Southwest anymore. Everywhere. It's now an event in New England
17:02
Speaker 1: last year, it's now everywhere, and that's awesome.
17:05
Speaker 2: I'd say if you looked at everything collectively, I'd safely
17:09
Speaker 2: say that for an overland vertical audience, it's probably between
17:13
Speaker 2: thirty and forty million worldwide, and then that's going to
17:16
Speaker 2: expand exponentially when you start looking at the complementary area.
17:21
Speaker 2: So overlanding is very much this integration of automotive outdoor
17:26
Speaker 2: travel and those are I mean out the outdoor industry
17:30
Speaker 2: is billions, billions people and dollars, and so the automotive
17:35
Speaker 2: enthusiast and the travel enthusiast. You start to bring all
17:37
Speaker 2: that together, and we're starting to see the use of
17:40
Speaker 2: the word in places that twenty years ago I would
17:44
Speaker 2: have never thought that we would have like that, the
17:47
Speaker 2: terminology would have penetrated that people.
17:49
Speaker 1: I bet Jeep is pretty stoked that they've got the
17:51
Speaker 1: trademark on the old overland for the vehicles at a corner.
17:57
Speaker 1: That's pretty pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, they and they take
18:00
Speaker 1: advantage of it and they're making better overland vehicles than
18:03
Speaker 1: they ever have and we're seeing that from so many manufacturers.
18:07
Speaker 1: I mean, it is so cool to see some of
18:09
Speaker 1: the vehicles that are coming out of GM, some of
18:11
Speaker 1: the vehicles coming out of Toyota, I mean, it's just
18:13
Speaker 1: what a bell weather moment for those of us who
18:16
Speaker 1: love this.
18:17
Speaker 2: I've noticed in the past year you go to a
18:19
Speaker 2: lot of company websites, whether it's a retailer or a manufacturer,
18:25
Speaker 2: like a brand, you're on their website and a lot
18:27
Speaker 2: of times they'll have you shop for the products and
18:30
Speaker 2: they break it down into categories. So you might have
18:33
Speaker 2: mountain biking and skiing and outdoor and camping, and there's overlanding.
18:37
Speaker 2: It's interesting how everybody's trying to define it and figure
18:40
Speaker 2: out what products do they put in that overland category,
18:43
Speaker 2: and it's usually rooftop tents and awnings and fridges and
18:47
Speaker 2: a lot of the basic things that we've sharak of.
18:49
Speaker 2: But just the fact that they're recognizing it as a
18:51
Speaker 2: category and implementing it as part of their strategy says
18:55
Speaker 2: a lot for the growth.
18:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's really important for us as an industry
18:59
Speaker 1: to continue to make stewardship a priority if we want
19:01
Speaker 1: overlanding to be continually viewed in a positive light by
19:05
Speaker 1: everyone within the outdoor space, which we have seen overlanding
19:08
Speaker 1: be adopted in a positive way. That's because stewardship is
19:12
Speaker 1: a cornerstone of the activity. So we need to continue
19:15
Speaker 1: to clean up our campsites. We need to be mindful
19:18
Speaker 1: of not doing damage to the trails. We need to
19:20
Speaker 1: stay on the trails. We need to take responsibility as
19:23
Speaker 1: the industry continues to grow, otherwise we'll end up where
19:27
Speaker 1: like some of these companies are like maybe I don't
19:29
Speaker 1: want to be associated.
19:31
Speaker 2: An interesting thing I've seen some of the OEMs, so
19:34
Speaker 2: some of the auto manufacturers actually doing, and they're written
19:37
Speaker 2: and kind of verbal communications is they'll talk about a
19:41
Speaker 2: vehicle as it might be appropriate for off roading in
19:44
Speaker 2: a separate light, they're going to talk about it being
19:46
Speaker 2: appropriate for overland Yeah.
19:47
Speaker 1: Which I like that.
19:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I respect that a lot because I don't
19:51
Speaker 2: think one replaces the No, they're different, but they're kind
19:53
Speaker 2: of saying, hey, you can use this to go out
19:56
Speaker 2: for the weekend, challenge your driving skill, challenge the vehicle,
20:00
Speaker 2: and it's built.
20:01
Speaker 1: To do that. Yeah.
20:02
Speaker 2: You can also use it as a reliable platform for
20:05
Speaker 2: you know, kind of a longer trip. Totally need a
20:08
Speaker 2: reliable vehicle. This is also it can also do.
20:11
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, because you can go on a very long
20:12
Speaker 1: overland trip and never leave the pavement. They're not synonymous.
20:16
Speaker 1: It's not just off road camping. Off roading is something
20:19
Speaker 1: that I still enjoy doing. You know, I still enjoy
20:22
Speaker 1: four wheeling. I enjoy the recreational aspect of it. It's
20:24
Speaker 1: a form of sport, whereas overlanding is travel, travel is overlanding,
20:29
Speaker 1: sport is four wheeling.
20:31
Speaker 2: So you're saying overlanding as travel.
20:34
Speaker 1: Now I would describe overlanding as travel, and I would
20:37
Speaker 1: describe off roading as sport or recreational.
20:40
Speaker 2: So where do because I also see overlanding as a
20:43
Speaker 2: supportive a supportive tool or supportive activity to help facilitate
20:48
Speaker 2: other activities.
20:49
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely right.
20:50
Speaker 2: But so if somebody's going to go fly fishing, but
20:53
Speaker 2: they want to go into the remote backcountry places where
20:57
Speaker 2: they need an overland.
20:58
Speaker 1: Rooting, you mean they want to travel further.
21:00
Speaker 2: They're traveling further. But now, it's a lot of people
21:03
Speaker 2: look at travel like, hey, I'm going on vacation, or
21:05
Speaker 2: I'm going to a different country, or I'm going to
21:08
Speaker 2: go to some tourist area. That's our typical definition of travel.
21:12
Speaker 1: Well, and that's another one that's really interesting, and that's
21:14
Speaker 1: where that nuance is so important because many people are
21:17
Speaker 1: tourists and there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, but there
21:20
Speaker 1: is a difference between a tourist and a traveler.
21:23
Speaker 2: I do think that you can you can define overlanding
21:26
Speaker 2: just as vehicle supported adventure without the travel all the time,
21:31
Speaker 2: because everybody is defining travel in a different way. So
21:34
Speaker 2: if I go fly fishing in the back country for
21:37
Speaker 2: four days, yes, technically I'm traveling to get there, but
21:40
Speaker 2: I consider it fly fishing.
21:41
Speaker 1: I don't consider it it sounds like you're going fly
21:43
Speaker 1: fishing using your overland vehicle. Right.
21:45
Speaker 2: It becomes very nuanced, And I think that that's and
21:47
Speaker 2: the reason I'm trying to clarify that a little bit
21:50
Speaker 2: is that is where I see the consumer and businesses
21:54
Speaker 2: get hung up. There's this speed bump that nobody can
21:59
Speaker 2: figure out how to get over because they don't know
22:01
Speaker 2: if they're doing it right. And I think if they
22:03
Speaker 2: just like we've said, you kind of stay genuine to
22:05
Speaker 2: what you're trying to do right, and you kind of
22:07
Speaker 2: it's it becomes defined along the way.
22:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the products are so useful in so many
22:13
Speaker 1: different areas, and there's so much crossover. Yeah, I don't
22:16
Speaker 1: think that they're you know, it's not a zero sum game.
22:19
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to be an overlander or
22:21
Speaker 1: a fly fisherman. I think a lot of people use
22:23
Speaker 1: their overland vehicle to go fly fishing, and then they
22:25
Speaker 1: also go on overland trips that they may do some
22:28
Speaker 1: fly fishing along the way.
22:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the largest when you look at the audience,
22:32
Speaker 2: that's the largest growth segment. Yeah, is people who they're
22:36
Speaker 2: not going to say that they're overlanding. They're not going
22:38
Speaker 2: to consider themselves to be an overlander, right, They're realizing
22:42
Speaker 2: that they can outfit their vehicle whatever it is. It
22:44
Speaker 2: could be a Subaru, it could be a land cruiser.
22:46
Speaker 2: They're outfitting their vehicle with some of these products that
22:49
Speaker 2: just make life a little bit more comfortable.
22:51
Speaker 1: They do. They're out in the back country, and because
22:53
Speaker 1: overlanding has grown, the products have gotten a lot better.
22:55
Speaker 1: So they're going to appeal to a wider audience too,
22:57
Speaker 1: which it only helps to have the whole INDO grow
23:00
Speaker 1: from there. So I think getting back to the scope,
23:02
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about the the eighteen million unique
23:06
Speaker 1: individuals that we touch within a year, and based upon
23:10
Speaker 1: our understanding of the market on the whole, the work
23:13
Speaker 1: that we've done with the Overland Expo we would put
23:16
Speaker 1: the total global audience size at around thirty million people.
23:19
Speaker 1: That's a lot of consumers, that's a lot of potential customers.
23:23
Speaker 1: And that's why OEMs and other larger organizations are starting
23:27
Speaker 1: to play more actively in the space is that they realize, like,
23:30
Speaker 1: this is an affluent, generally well educated consumer that is
23:34
Speaker 1: oftentimes interested in buying high quality gear. So that's going
23:38
Speaker 1: to appeal to a unique set of suppliers, including and
23:42
Speaker 1: this is why the OEM piece is important. We come
23:44
Speaker 1: back to it often. OEMs are interested in selling new
23:48
Speaker 1: cars to new car customers. Traditionally, the off road buyer was,
23:54
Speaker 1: with the exception of a Wrangler, was oftentimes a used
23:56
Speaker 1: car buyer, because you don't you know, you're not normally
23:58
Speaker 1: like first generation and discovery owner that's going to go
24:01
Speaker 1: out and go four wheeling in his eighty thousand dollars.
24:04
Speaker 2: Car, rist car that you're not allowed to scratch or
24:06
Speaker 2: not worried about scratch normally.
24:08
Speaker 1: And I'm generalizing that for sure, But whereas the OEMs
24:12
Speaker 1: recognize that the intention of overlanding is not typically putting
24:15
Speaker 1: the vehicle in as much risk, and you also want
24:18
Speaker 1: the vehicle to be comfortable you want to be able
24:20
Speaker 1: to maybe carry your family in it. A lot of
24:21
Speaker 1: the things that a daily driver also needs to do.
24:24
Speaker 1: The OEMs are finding and this is what the OEMs
24:26
Speaker 1: have told me, is they've identified overlanding as a key
24:29
Speaker 1: opportunity because these are in many cases new car buyers.
24:33
Speaker 1: I think that's why we're seeing them go all in
24:35
Speaker 1: on overlanding is they recognize that there are people who
24:38
Speaker 1: enjoy overlanding that have the resources to go buy a
24:42
Speaker 1: new car. Sure. So that's what's been really interesting and
24:45
Speaker 1: exciting for me on the OEM space, and it extends
24:48
Speaker 1: way beyond that. The OEMs are very active and I
24:51
Speaker 1: engage with a lot of them frequently. They're very interested
24:55
Speaker 1: in how do they connect with this community. We see
24:57
Speaker 1: it at the Overland Expo, we see it at the
24:59
Speaker 1: Rebel Round, we see it at a lot of these
25:01
Speaker 1: other events, and we see it in their engagement with us.
25:04
Speaker 1: Is that these OEMs are like, how do I understand
25:06
Speaker 1: this customer? What are their needs? How can I best
25:08
Speaker 1: meet the needs of that customer? And it's also a
25:10
Speaker 1: feel good story when you see Clay and Rachelle and
25:13
Speaker 1: their family driving around some place together in this great film,
25:17
Speaker 1: and it's a feel good thing that easily resonates with
25:20
Speaker 1: the new car buyers, whereas there are maybe other stories
25:23
Speaker 1: that don't. So again, staying authentic to that storyline is
25:26
Speaker 1: really important.
25:27
Speaker 2: For the OEMs. It's very appropriate for them to talk
25:29
Speaker 2: about overlanding directly with their vehicle because it's an integral
25:33
Speaker 2: part of the overland experience, right.
25:36
Speaker 1: And most of the time they don't need to be heavy,
25:38
Speaker 1: heavily modified.
25:39
Speaker 2: Now, where it becomes disingenuous and where the consumer, I
25:42
Speaker 2: think sees through it is when you get a product
25:45
Speaker 2: that the consumer is going to use it for overlanding.
25:48
Speaker 1: Right.
25:48
Speaker 2: So one of the things to realize that the consumer
25:51
Speaker 2: in this space again using the idea of overlanding to
25:54
Speaker 2: support their other activities. They're going out to do all
25:57
Speaker 2: these other activities. When we look at that activity list
26:00
Speaker 2: and that kind of demographic psychographic breakdown of this audience,
26:04
Speaker 2: we see all the other activities that they're interested in. Sure,
26:07
Speaker 2: and so we were talking earlier, and you use the
26:09
Speaker 2: idea of a backpack, eighty six percent of this audience
26:12
Speaker 2: considers themselves to be backpackers. Sure, right, Well, that's another
26:15
Speaker 2: category that's very widely defined right, you're going to go
26:19
Speaker 2: hike the Applachian trailer? Are you just going to go
26:20
Speaker 2: on a three mile hike on Saturday morning? If you
26:23
Speaker 2: bring a backpack into the space to this consumer and
26:27
Speaker 2: say hey, here's a great backpack for you to use,
26:31
Speaker 2: they'll identify with that now and they'll buy the backpack.
26:34
Speaker 2: But if you say hey, here's an overlanding backpack, nobody's
26:37
Speaker 2: going to buy it.
26:38
Speaker 1: It sounds an overlanding backpack. It sounds silly.
26:41
Speaker 2: So there's a time and a place to use the terminology,
26:44
Speaker 2: and it's you don't want to force your way through
26:47
Speaker 2: the door. You want to kind of say, hey, I
26:50
Speaker 2: bet you guys could use what we make. And I
26:52
Speaker 2: mean the amount of lightweight camping equipment that this audience
26:56
Speaker 2: uses is very surprising.
26:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of mode cyclists, smaller vehicles, lighter payload,
27:02
Speaker 1: and you try to put.
27:03
Speaker 2: Three to four people into a jeep wrangler. You can't
27:06
Speaker 2: take the big stuff, right, You're taking little things because
27:10
Speaker 2: you run out of space, run out of We were
27:12
Speaker 2: talking yesterday about payload capacity on a lot of these vehicles.
27:15
Speaker 2: You run out of it really quickly.
27:17
Speaker 1: No, I would agree. The other thing that I think
27:19
Speaker 1: is important to understand around scope, and I think what
27:21
Speaker 1: confuses people in recent months around peak overlanding. The idea
27:25
Speaker 1: of peak overlanding is that we did have a COVID bump,
27:28
Speaker 1: So during the COVID lockdown, we did have a huge bump.
27:31
Speaker 1: So during the COVID lockdown, we saw this massive increase
27:35
Speaker 1: in interest in overlanding. Tons of trailers were purchased, lots
27:39
Speaker 1: of vehicles were purchased. We saw that inflationary effect because
27:41
Speaker 1: people couldn't go do the family vacation to Italy or
27:45
Speaker 1: France or whatever, so they you know, they bought a
27:47
Speaker 1: trailer or or they bought a vehicle, or they started
27:50
Speaker 1: to go doing more overlanding because that was their only option.
27:52
Speaker 1: They couldn't fly internationally. So up until that point, we
27:55
Speaker 1: saw really consistent growth of the space fifteen to twenty
27:59
Speaker 1: percent a year, and it was fairly consistent, like if
28:02
Speaker 1: you look at at even some of those Google tools,
28:04
Speaker 1: the rate of growth and overlanding was very consistent. And
28:07
Speaker 1: then we saw this massive spike because of COVID. So
28:10
Speaker 1: now what has happened is there's going to be a
28:12
Speaker 1: natural effect from that. There's going to be a natural
28:15
Speaker 1: retraction after some kind of an explosion in any market,
28:18
Speaker 1: it's understanding market dynamics, and so there is a slowdown
28:22
Speaker 1: that we have seen. We understand it to be somewhere
28:25
Speaker 1: around eighteen to twenty percent. But if you had just
28:27
Speaker 1: taken the chart and cut out the bump, we were
28:31
Speaker 1: already we're still on the exact same growth rate. But
28:35
Speaker 1: we do know that that has affected a lot of businesses,
28:38
Speaker 1: and we just want to give people the courage to
28:42
Speaker 1: know that we still see the industry growing at the
28:44
Speaker 1: same rate that it always has been if you exclude
28:47
Speaker 1: the COVID bump. So we do know that the industry
28:51
Speaker 1: is healthy. There's a lot of discussion around it. There's
28:53
Speaker 1: a lot of new players coming into the market, you know,
28:56
Speaker 1: like kuat Racks just started making overland truckbed racks, and
29:00
Speaker 1: so we're seeing more and more companies that have specific
29:03
Speaker 1: knowledge and skill sets around manufacturing high quality components that
29:07
Speaker 1: are making tools that overlanders need in order to go
29:10
Speaker 1: and travel in their vehicle. So we're seeing more and
29:13
Speaker 1: more expansion within the space. Have some courage around the
29:16
Speaker 1: fact that this is an understandable situation. Interest rates are
29:20
Speaker 1: always are also higher at the moment we're is going
29:23
Speaker 1: to be affecting like trailer sales or camper sales or
29:26
Speaker 1: overland vehicle sales.
29:27
Speaker 2: Every industry is kind of seeing, at least in the
29:29
Speaker 2: kind of the outdoor space. Ye seeing a lot of
29:32
Speaker 2: it's going to mirror outdoor recreation went on. You know,
29:35
Speaker 2: it went crazy for a couple of years. Now it's readjusting.
29:38
Speaker 2: It's coming back down to kind of like the previous
29:41
Speaker 2: projector you know, but it's we saw I think it
29:44
Speaker 2: was thirty it was high thirties from twenty twenty and
29:47
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one.
29:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:49
Speaker 2: As far as audience growth, that's right. So normally fifteen
29:52
Speaker 2: to twenty percent growth year over year because it's an
29:54
Speaker 2: expanding space, sure, and then to jump up thirty eight
29:58
Speaker 2: percent and then come back down. But it's like you said,
30:01
Speaker 2: it's still growing.
30:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you just take out the bump,
30:05
Speaker 1: the trajectory is still on that normal fifteen to low
30:09
Speaker 1: twenty percent growth rate. So there's a lot of reasons
30:12
Speaker 1: for the smaller businesses that are listening to have some
30:14
Speaker 1: courage that there will be a normal balancing of supply
30:17
Speaker 1: and demand as the industry continues to grow. It will
30:20
Speaker 1: bring in new customers. It's just making sure that you
30:22
Speaker 1: have a good plan around how to speak to those
30:25
Speaker 1: new people that are coming into the space, and then
30:28
Speaker 1: how to reinforce to the existing audience space why products
30:32
Speaker 1: like you sell are really relevant. And there's also lots
30:36
Speaker 1: of new white space. There's lots of new opportunity. We
30:39
Speaker 1: talked about the other day. We talked about the unique
30:41
Speaker 1: componentry company that makes this conversion to the starlink like
30:45
Speaker 1: he cannot keep up, So like there are these there
30:48
Speaker 1: are these opportunities around new and emergent technologies that I think,
30:52
Speaker 1: I think people are able to capitalize.
30:54
Speaker 2: On if you can find the white space as a manufacturer,
30:57
Speaker 2: as a brand, if you can find the white space
30:59
Speaker 2: that hasn't been addressed yet and you look for if
31:02
Speaker 2: you're a brand or a company trying to figure out
31:05
Speaker 2: how do you get into this, you know, maybe go
31:07
Speaker 2: on a couple of trips yourself, sure and figure out,
31:10
Speaker 2: like what was easy about it, what was difficult about right,
31:13
Speaker 2: and what type of product is missing from the space right?
31:17
Speaker 2: You know, I always tell folks like think about storage.
31:21
Speaker 2: You know, storage for any vehicle, you know is a
31:24
Speaker 2: very difficult one. You know, because every vehicle is a
31:27
Speaker 2: little bit different, and there's always new vehicles coming out
31:29
Speaker 2: of the market, and every person needs different type of
31:32
Speaker 2: storage to bring different types of gear. So is it
31:35
Speaker 2: hard storage, soft storage? What's the answer there? That's a
31:38
Speaker 2: huge category.
31:39
Speaker 1: And also being really careful around just because someone else
31:43
Speaker 1: is doing something or it appears to be successful that
31:45
Speaker 1: you just pair it or that you copy that, you
31:47
Speaker 1: end up in this echo chamber and it takes away
31:49
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that you are inherently good at.
31:52
Speaker 1: So find that confluence of something that if you're a
31:54
Speaker 1: knowledge worker, maybe you're in technology, you find a need
31:58
Speaker 1: within overlanding that course respawns with your corese skills. What
32:02
Speaker 1: you don't want to do is just say, like, I'm
32:03
Speaker 1: going to quit my job as this technologist and I'm
32:06
Speaker 1: going to start sewing overland bags. Yeah.
32:09
Speaker 2: Its the copying doesn't go.
32:11
Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't work. Look for those unique opportunities
32:13
Speaker 1: and then build something of high quality that dovetails in
32:18
Speaker 1: with your existing skill sets. So many people that we
32:21
Speaker 1: have seen be successful in overlanding, it's because they took
32:24
Speaker 1: something that they already did well and then they incorporated
32:27
Speaker 1: it into their business. Or they started to serve the
32:31
Speaker 1: overland customer out of that skill set, just going what
32:34
Speaker 1: The thing that we've seen people struggle with the most
32:36
Speaker 1: is the Alla Baba overlanding. You don't want to just
32:39
Speaker 1: go on and buy another Rooftan of the same type
32:42
Speaker 1: and put a different cover on it and expect yourself
32:45
Speaker 1: to have a business. It's not going to be successful.
32:48
Speaker 1: There is no such thing as a get rich The.
32:50
Speaker 2: Only here's where that works, and it's not a great model.
32:53
Speaker 2: But if you try to do that, if you try
32:56
Speaker 2: to do the copy and you bring it to the
32:58
Speaker 2: existing overland market, it's not going to work because it's
33:03
Speaker 2: already there's already five of them, and the consumers incredibly savvy.
33:07
Speaker 1: Oh yeah they know.
33:08
Speaker 2: So the only place that would work is if you say,
33:11
Speaker 2: go to you know, you go buy the generic rooftop
33:14
Speaker 2: tent or the generic fridge freezer and put a different
33:17
Speaker 2: logo on it, and then take it to a completely separate.
33:20
Speaker 1: Group of people segment.
33:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, take it to college football game tailgaters. Sure,
33:25
Speaker 2: who have never seen anything like that before, and all
33:27
Speaker 2: of a sudden it's going to do great.
33:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it has the potentials.
33:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has a potential to do great, but if
33:32
Speaker 2: you're going to try to copy and bring it into
33:34
Speaker 2: the same space, it's not going to work.
33:36
Speaker 1: That we just not And plus there's bigger players now.
33:38
Speaker 1: I think it worked in the beginning for people to
33:41
Speaker 1: be generalists. For me, I just remember that off roading
33:45
Speaker 1: because that was what I was doing a lot of
33:47
Speaker 1: It became more and more and more hardcore, and it
33:49
Speaker 1: didn't meet my goals, which was to go out with
33:52
Speaker 1: my family and go explore. And I realized, like, this
33:55
Speaker 1: whole industry was moving in this one direction towards extreme
33:58
Speaker 1: rock crawling, and they stopped talking about the thing that
34:00
Speaker 1: the majority of people did, which was they took their
34:03
Speaker 1: vehicle or family and they went out with their family.
34:06
Speaker 1: They went exploring a lot of times they went camping,
34:08
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, there's this thing called overlanding. And
34:10
Speaker 1: so for me, it was I saw it as a
34:12
Speaker 1: white space twenty years ago, and that's what worked for us.
34:15
Speaker 1: And then when we look at once, we understand the scope.
34:18
Speaker 1: So this is a very large it's a very large
34:21
Speaker 1: industry right now. It is an industry that is still growing.
34:24
Speaker 1: We see opportunity coming up all the time, and we
34:27
Speaker 1: know what some of these forward looking opportunities are a
34:30
Speaker 1: lot of these things we can't share with the audience,
34:33
Speaker 1: but we can tell you that we understand based upon
34:35
Speaker 1: what a lot of these OEMs and larger companies are doing,
34:38
Speaker 1: is that they're investing heavily in what's coming next. So
34:42
Speaker 1: we know that the overland space is going to continue
34:45
Speaker 1: to grow in a healthy way.
34:46
Speaker 2: And on the retail side, we're seeing a lot of
34:49
Speaker 2: expansion as well. We're seeing larger online retailers and some
34:54
Speaker 2: new brick and mortar retailers. They're kind of taking that
34:57
Speaker 2: it's almost a big box approach, right. So online you've
35:00
Speaker 2: got companies like Real truck Now has a whole overlanding
35:05
Speaker 2: segment on their website and they can outfit all these
35:07
Speaker 2: different vehicles with all these different products right right. And
35:10
Speaker 2: then on the brick and mortar side, you've got it's
35:12
Speaker 2: what Expedition Superstore that is expanding through all these markets
35:16
Speaker 2: and pretty soon you're going to have an Expedition Superstore
35:19
Speaker 2: and all the DMAs. You've got all these things where
35:23
Speaker 2: or these retailers, large retailers where what's happening to the
35:26
Speaker 2: small retailer They have to start to specialize a little
35:29
Speaker 2: bit more so instead of carrying fifty different things, they
35:33
Speaker 2: maybe have to carry a dozen to two dozen very
35:36
Speaker 2: specialty things that are harder to get anywhere else.
35:39
Speaker 1: Or get really really good at services. So a great
35:41
Speaker 1: example of that, a standout in my mind is Mainline Overland.
35:45
Speaker 1: Also okafour WL drive is another great example. So these
35:48
Speaker 1: are companies that specialize in doing premium service to their customers,
35:54
Speaker 1: which means installing the suspensions, installing the red arc battery systems,
35:59
Speaker 1: installing campers and shells.
36:01
Speaker 2: OK four L drive. You drive in one side of
36:03
Speaker 2: the building with a brand new car or you know,
36:06
Speaker 2: just a bare truck, drive out with a fully outfitted rig.
36:09
Speaker 1: That's right, and Mainline Overland is also doing that. They
36:11
Speaker 1: have multiple location locations now, so it's really impressive to
36:15
Speaker 1: see that. So if you're just trying to be a
36:17
Speaker 1: brick and mortar or a retailer without providing those premium services,
36:21
Speaker 1: then you're competing on price, or you're competing on because
36:23
Speaker 1: you have it in stock. That's also very expensive to
36:25
Speaker 1: try to win at that game. So there's also rack attack.
36:29
Speaker 1: There's another one. They just focus on roofracs. Yeah, but
36:32
Speaker 1: it's another one of those you drive in one side
36:34
Speaker 1: of the building and you get fully outfitted and now
36:37
Speaker 1: they're doing tents and refrigerators and everything. So yeah, it's
36:41
Speaker 1: it has the full installation. So from a service side,
36:43
Speaker 1: they've got the inventory and the service. What a great example.
36:47
Speaker 1: So when we when we talk about what works and
36:49
Speaker 1: what we've seen work, it's important to in an industry
36:53
Speaker 1: that's maturing, like overlanding, it's important to be careful to
36:58
Speaker 1: to not try to pair the outliers or the first movers.
37:02
Speaker 1: There's not an opportunity for a lot of first moving
37:04
Speaker 1: now in the space that happened twenty years ago. So
37:07
Speaker 1: what you want to do is find what you are
37:09
Speaker 1: uniquely good at a lot of times those first mover
37:11
Speaker 1: positions are already taken, so look for if there is
37:14
Speaker 1: a new opportunity or an emerging technology like EVS would
37:18
Speaker 1: be a good example, ev overlanding. You could be a
37:20
Speaker 1: first mover in this emerging segment within overlanding.
37:24
Speaker 2: We've seen a lot of those lately, and you know
37:26
Speaker 2: you talk to them about it, they're looking twenty years ahead.
37:29
Speaker 1: That's right.
37:30
Speaker 2: The practicality of implementing it right now, right is limited,
37:33
Speaker 2: but they're coming up with designs that they know if
37:35
Speaker 2: they get in on the head, you know, get ahead
37:38
Speaker 2: of it twenty years from now, they're going to be
37:39
Speaker 2: a leader.
37:40
Speaker 1: And also being really careful around the outliers. We see
37:44
Speaker 1: that in the influencer space there are influencers who have
37:47
Speaker 1: outsized audiences, and then we see thousands of people trying
37:51
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. So you want to make
37:53
Speaker 1: sure that you can present a unique story and unique perspective,
37:57
Speaker 1: something that is unique to your own experience as a
38:00
Speaker 1: posed to like, oh it worked for this one individual
38:02
Speaker 1: or these two individuals. Because we interact with a lot
38:05
Speaker 1: of the influencers, we know that very less than a
38:07
Speaker 1: handful of them actually make a living.
38:09
Speaker 2: We've seen a lot of influencers kind of come and
38:12
Speaker 2: go over the last five years.
38:13
Speaker 1: It's because it's very difficult, and the biggest problem with
38:16
Speaker 1: the influencer business model is that you don't own the customer,
38:20
Speaker 1: and you also don't own the outlet. When you're on Instagram,
38:23
Speaker 1: Imagine waking up one day and the Instagram servers got
38:27
Speaker 1: hacked and that it's down for a week right gone,
38:30
Speaker 1: or in the case of the algorithm, or in the
38:33
Speaker 1: case of TikTok, there's an emerging outlet that and the
38:37
Speaker 1: problem with TikTok, especially for those that were YouTube producers,
38:41
Speaker 1: is that nobody makes any money on TikTok. I mean
38:44
Speaker 1: they make pennies compared to what they made on YouTube.
38:47
Speaker 1: Because Google, despite its size, they make an effort to
38:50
Speaker 1: be an ethical company, so they actually do compensate creatives
38:53
Speaker 1: in some way, whereas TikTok does not. But TikTok is
38:56
Speaker 1: the fastest growing outlet for that kind of content. So
39:00
Speaker 1: in my mind, I've never seen the influencer market as
39:03
Speaker 1: being viable for a significant number of people. So I've
39:07
Speaker 1: never recommended people consider it because that doesn't meet my
39:09
Speaker 1: qualifications of a successful business. But there are going to
39:12
Speaker 1: be outliers that are very successful, and so then just
39:15
Speaker 1: congratulate them, like be happy that they were the ones
39:19
Speaker 1: that got to be successful in that outlier position. But
39:23
Speaker 1: when it comes to putting your own family at risk,
39:25
Speaker 1: your own finances at risk, and your own future at risk,
39:28
Speaker 1: make sure that you're coming back to really core fundamental
39:30
Speaker 1: business principles.
39:32
Speaker 2: And some are very successful at it. Like I said,
39:34
Speaker 2: there's the outliers. I was at a vehicle drive Media
39:37
Speaker 2: launch a couple of weeks ago, and they brought us
39:40
Speaker 2: in on waves one day after the other, and the
39:42
Speaker 2: last day happened to be it was influencer Day. Yeah,
39:46
Speaker 2: and they had you know, seven or eight people who
39:48
Speaker 2: were just social media personalities, right, and they were there
39:52
Speaker 2: to do the first five days that were full of
39:55
Speaker 2: just kind of what you'd consider, you know, journalists and
39:58
Speaker 2: then the social media aspect. And it was really interesting
40:01
Speaker 2: to see the OEM embrace that group of people. They
40:04
Speaker 2: were all very well qualified to be.
40:06
Speaker 1: There, that's right. But again it's a very small group.
40:08
Speaker 1: So the influencer game is very difficult. It's also very
40:11
Speaker 1: very expensive to come into. Now. It's like if you
40:14
Speaker 1: bought bitcoin, it's seventy five cents, right, that was pretty cheap.
40:19
Speaker 1: It's kind of a side gig, that's right. There were
40:21
Speaker 1: people there that had outside gains with crypto, and now
40:24
Speaker 1: people are trying to do it in twenty twenty three,
40:27
Speaker 1: and you want to talk about a fool's Errand this
40:29
Speaker 1: is not financial advice, but it's it's a lot more
40:31
Speaker 1: difficult to have an outsized outcome in something that has
40:35
Speaker 1: already had.
40:36
Speaker 2: Some enough sense to say that social media is not
40:38
Speaker 2: a good play.
40:39
Speaker 1: It is. We have our own social media channel. Absolutely,
40:41
Speaker 1: we use.
40:41
Speaker 2: Them every day, you know, on a regular basis, and
40:44
Speaker 2: I do think it's it can be difficult to figure
40:47
Speaker 2: out for a business. How do you translate somebody watching
40:50
Speaker 2: your social media feed or liking whatever you posted, How
40:54
Speaker 2: does that translate into a dollar that goes to your
40:56
Speaker 2: bottom line.
40:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, we look at it as enough to We look
40:59
Speaker 1: at as an internal marketing tool market just like any
41:02
Speaker 1: other company, awareness company would. We don't see it as
41:05
Speaker 1: a business model because it's too it's too fragile, it's
41:08
Speaker 1: too volatile.
41:09
Speaker 2: And it can change without our We're not in control
41:11
Speaker 2: of it.
41:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. Whereas we produce our own print publication that we print,
41:15
Speaker 1: we know the customers, we have a relationship with them.
41:18
Speaker 1: We have our own website, we know when people come
41:20
Speaker 1: to it. We own the url, we own the servers,
41:23
Speaker 1: we have control over the process, and same with the podcast.
41:27
Speaker 1: Podcast is probably one of the better ways for someone
41:30
Speaker 1: who's looking to get started from the media perspective into
41:34
Speaker 1: the space because you have the opportunity to share your
41:36
Speaker 1: specific knowledge, share your stories, meet with others, and talk
41:40
Speaker 1: about others, and the cost of entry is very low,
41:43
Speaker 1: but you actually own the category. You actually can move
41:47
Speaker 1: it from server to server. It's available through ourss feed
41:50
Speaker 1: around the world. There's not a gatekeeper like in Instagram
41:54
Speaker 1: or it's a much.
41:54
Speaker 2: More intimate connection. I think so the consumer right now,
41:57
Speaker 2: so there's people listening to this podcast right now have
42:00
Speaker 2: chosen to do so.
42:01
Speaker 1: And the reason why I like pot I mean I learned,
42:03
Speaker 1: have learned so much through this podcast process. I've met
42:07
Speaker 1: so many of my heroes and spent time with them
42:09
Speaker 1: and it's been such a rewarding exercise for me. But
42:13
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we started the Overland Journal
42:16
Speaker 1: podcast many years ago now is because we identified it
42:20
Speaker 1: as actually the only form of media that every Overlander
42:23
Speaker 1: can consume. So if someone's on a motorcycle, they can't
42:26
Speaker 1: be on the internet, they can't be reading a magazine,
42:30
Speaker 1: but they can listen to a podcast for time. And
42:33
Speaker 1: it's also great for drivetime or in an airplane or
42:36
Speaker 1: whatever else. So we know that podcasts can be consumed
42:40
Speaker 1: and it's a rapidly growing segment of the space too.
42:42
Speaker 1: One of the things that we've seen work in general
42:46
Speaker 1: is making premium products that are specific to either your
42:50
Speaker 1: skill sets, or if you're a company that wants to
42:52
Speaker 1: come into the space, make a great version of something
42:55
Speaker 1: that an Overland Overlander can use. Like the kuat rack
42:59
Speaker 1: is an example that they are a premium rack maker.
43:02
Speaker 1: It was not a stretch for them to make a
43:05
Speaker 1: truck rack.
43:05
Speaker 2: I think to enhance that idea a little bit more
43:08
Speaker 2: is realize that this consumer could very well use your
43:11
Speaker 2: product as it is. Oh, totally, I think a lot
43:13
Speaker 2: of Overlanders could. Yeah, Kuwak came out with the ibex
43:16
Speaker 2: or a truckbed. You can very well use their hitch
43:20
Speaker 2: mounted bi.
43:20
Speaker 1: Crack, which is also great.
43:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't feel if you're trying to figure it out,
43:24
Speaker 2: don't feel like you have to come up with a
43:26
Speaker 2: whole new business plan, a whole new product plan. A
43:30
Speaker 2: lot of times you can just identify that this is
43:32
Speaker 2: a very dedicated and affluent group of consumers that you
43:36
Speaker 2: can bring your existing product lines oftentimes.
43:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no question. It doesn't have to have the
43:41
Speaker 1: Overland badge in order to be useful.
43:43
Speaker 2: In many cases, that's the biggest hurdle that I see
43:46
Speaker 2: paralyzed companies. They feel like it's got to say Overland.
43:48
Speaker 2: They feel like the picture's got to have a truck
43:50
Speaker 2: in the background, it really doesn't.
43:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean the picture is probably a good idea,
43:54
Speaker 1: but not to spend a whole bunch of money spooling
43:57
Speaker 1: up a product that's kind of like the other ones
43:59
Speaker 1: that you make and ends up not being as good.
44:00
Speaker 1: So yeah, I know that that makes a lot of sense.
44:03
Speaker 1: So I think really focusing on those premium product opportunities,
44:07
Speaker 1: like Brian said, go out, find out where the gaps
44:09
Speaker 1: are in your own experience and use that to determine innovation.
44:13
Speaker 2: And the overland expos and a lot of the events
44:16
Speaker 2: are a great place to do that. A lot of
44:17
Speaker 2: folks will go to the events and they'll walk around
44:20
Speaker 2: and just look at the exhibitors. I always recommend go
44:23
Speaker 2: out to the campground, walk up and down the aisles
44:26
Speaker 2: of the campground and look and see how the end
44:28
Speaker 2: consumer is actually participating in the experience, right. You know,
44:33
Speaker 2: if you go around, if you go around dinner time,
44:35
Speaker 2: if you go you know, happy hour time, dinner time,
44:37
Speaker 2: maybe at breakfast, when everybody's kind of doing at the
44:40
Speaker 2: start of the day, they'll have their their you know,
44:43
Speaker 2: they kind of unfold their campground or their campsites. Everything's
44:46
Speaker 2: out right and you can see all the different products
44:49
Speaker 2: that they use just by walking around.
44:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way to do it. Always go
44:52
Speaker 1: through the Overland Expo campgrounds. There's a lot to be
44:54
Speaker 1: learned and really trying to don't be something that you're
44:57
Speaker 1: not focus on who you are, especially if you want
44:59
Speaker 1: to get in the media side of things, if you
45:01
Speaker 1: want to get into the social media side of things,
45:03
Speaker 1: just be authentic to who you are. Make sure that
45:05
Speaker 1: you maintain other income streams. We've seen influencers that are
45:09
Speaker 1: successful that also do social media marketing for companies or
45:13
Speaker 1: their photographers, or they have other skills that they're bringing
45:16
Speaker 1: into the space instead of just trying to somehow make
45:18
Speaker 1: a living off of YouTube traffic numbers. That's a very
45:22
Speaker 1: difficult thing.
45:23
Speaker 2: What about writers and photographers? How would you what advice
45:26
Speaker 2: would you give to people who want to I want
45:28
Speaker 2: to go travel, but I want to have some income
45:31
Speaker 2: while I do it. We get a lot of inquiries
45:34
Speaker 2: on a daily basis from people who just say, hey, I.
45:36
Speaker 1: Want to write for you. Yeah, and I think that's
45:38
Speaker 1: the first mistake. The best thing that you can do
45:40
Speaker 1: if you're interested in the journalism side of things is
45:43
Speaker 1: to create a complete package of either a vehicle build
45:47
Speaker 1: that you've done, and make sure that that vehicle build
45:50
Speaker 1: has been used out in the field, because we'll also
45:53
Speaker 1: discount those if they haven't been used, unless it's somebody
45:56
Speaker 1: that's a very experienced overlander, because we want it to
45:58
Speaker 1: show that there's credibility behind it. The other option is
46:01
Speaker 1: go do an amazing adventure and document your adventure. Take
46:04
Speaker 1: great photographs. Don't just take photographs of the truck. Take
46:08
Speaker 1: photographs of the truck. Take photographs of the people. Show
46:11
Speaker 1: us the experience. Yeah, show us the mountains, the streams,
46:13
Speaker 1: the food. Give us. Nobody wants to read about the
46:16
Speaker 1: family vacation. They want to read about and experience an adventure.
46:20
Speaker 1: Tell us how it felt, share new information, give history,
46:24
Speaker 1: and then create an entire package with images, with captions.
46:29
Speaker 1: Make sure that the package has been edited, and then
46:31
Speaker 1: submit it to a publication. And you will be shocked
46:35
Speaker 1: how successful that you are, because ninety five percent of
46:38
Speaker 1: people don't do that. Even people who describe themselves as
46:41
Speaker 1: professional journalists, they always pitch on an email. They don't
46:44
Speaker 1: take a lot of time. When I got started into
46:46
Speaker 1: all this, that's what I did. I created a complete package,
46:49
Speaker 1: and I sent it to Phil Howell at Four Wheel
46:52
Speaker 1: Drive and Sport Utility magazine and he's like, I've never
46:55
Speaker 1: gotten a complete package before. He's like, you're in Yeah.
46:57
Speaker 1: It was like good proposal. Yeah, And it wasn't even
46:59
Speaker 1: a proposal. I sent him the He had to do
47:02
Speaker 1: no work. It was already edited, the images were good,
47:05
Speaker 1: the copy was there. I did the research, I bought
47:08
Speaker 1: the magazine. I did word count assessments of how long
47:10
Speaker 1: the stories were on average. I delivered him something that
47:13
Speaker 1: I know he would put in the magazine, and he
47:15
Speaker 1: took that one. He's like, what do you got next?
47:17
Speaker 1: Because I made his job easier. Whereas there can be
47:20
Speaker 1: a lot of entitlement, come with a complete package. Come
47:24
Speaker 1: with with that, and I think you'll be really surprised.
47:26
Speaker 1: It's also important to work with good outlets that pay
47:29
Speaker 1: people properly. Your time is worth something, so you're better
47:33
Speaker 1: off continuing to work on your craft. So that way
47:35
Speaker 1: you could submit something to an outside magazine or to
47:39
Speaker 1: an overland journal, to a premium publication that pays their
47:42
Speaker 1: editors properly. We pay our editors well enough that they
47:46
Speaker 1: earn a living as a family and so work with
47:48
Speaker 1: outlets that pay pay people properly for the work that
47:52
Speaker 1: they do, and I think you'll find a lot of
47:54
Speaker 1: success with that and people make a living doing it. Yeah,
47:56
Speaker 1: So I think that's that's a real opportunity. Being a
47:58
Speaker 1: great photographer is a real opera tunity. You know, there's
48:01
Speaker 1: challenges around that right now with AI and the accessibility
48:05
Speaker 1: of a lot of equipment that makes it easier for
48:07
Speaker 1: people to take photos than ever before. The video work
48:09
Speaker 1: stuff is challenging too, with the shift between TikTok and YouTube.
48:14
Speaker 1: But I think that telling great stories will always have
48:17
Speaker 1: a place. And this would be my last piece of advice.
48:20
Speaker 1: The comedian Steve Martin, he had this great saying which
48:24
Speaker 1: was be so good that they can't ignore you. Take
48:27
Speaker 1: the time to become an expert at your craft, spend
48:30
Speaker 1: the energy to do great work, and you will not
48:33
Speaker 1: have to worry about an opportunity within the overland space.
48:37
Speaker 1: It's the ones that expect to kind of fall up
48:39
Speaker 1: into success at the end of the day, those stories
48:41
Speaker 1: are rare. They're the outliers. Take the time, do the work,
48:44
Speaker 1: create great work, create great products. And like the guy
48:48
Speaker 1: from the componentry company that makes the Starlink antenna unique componentry.
48:53
Speaker 1: He doesn't have to market or advertise. He makes an
48:55
Speaker 1: incredible product that solved all kinds of problems for me.
48:58
Speaker 1: Unique solution. Yeah, exactly, So we're talking about it because
49:03
Speaker 1: it's literally a game changer. So, you know, making products
49:07
Speaker 1: like that that people cannot ignore that they'll want to
49:10
Speaker 1: talk about those, be so excited to use do great work,
49:13
Speaker 1: make great products, and you'll be shocked at the success
49:16
Speaker 1: that you see. Well, the last thing that we've got
49:18
Speaker 1: a few more minutes, I want to talk a little
49:19
Speaker 1: bit about how once you've decided that you want to
49:23
Speaker 1: create a product, what are some ways that you can
49:25
Speaker 1: market that? And there are lots of great outlets within
49:28
Speaker 1: the overland space that people can can use to do that.
49:31
Speaker 1: From my perspective as a content producer and as someone
49:36
Speaker 1: who works with a lot of these companies, is just
49:38
Speaker 1: making sure that your narrative is very authentic, don't present
49:41
Speaker 1: your product as something that it isn't, and then be
49:44
Speaker 1: very genuine to the quality of the components that you're
49:46
Speaker 1: making and the work that you're doing, and then really
49:49
Speaker 1: establish that credibility and innovation of your product in your narrative.
49:53
Speaker 1: So just be careful about the taglines that are popular
49:56
Speaker 1: from everyone. Really focus on credibility, show your product being
50:00
Speaker 1: used in unique ways. Partner with influencers that are doing
50:03
Speaker 1: big adventures that add credibility to what you're producing. And
50:07
Speaker 1: then Brian, of course you've got to have Those are
50:08
Speaker 1: my few ideas, but you're going to have a whole
50:10
Speaker 1: lot of them.
50:11
Speaker 2: Around marketing, the experienced marketers will get it. The people
50:13
Speaker 2: who are coming in and saying, hey, I just want
50:15
Speaker 2: to I want to get into this space somehow.
50:17
Speaker 1: Is that.
50:17
Speaker 2: We talk a lot about the funnel in marketing. It's
50:20
Speaker 2: the funnel. You've got the top of the funnel, which
50:22
Speaker 2: is just general brand awareness. People need to know that
50:25
Speaker 2: you exist, right, and then as you go down the funnel,
50:29
Speaker 2: now you can start to educate them on what your
50:31
Speaker 2: individual products are from that general awareness, and that's the
50:35
Speaker 2: big You want to reach as many people as you
50:36
Speaker 2: can with that general awareness and education. Sure, and then
50:39
Speaker 2: it starts to become and that's great for general media properties.
50:43
Speaker 2: And then at some point you want to give people
50:46
Speaker 2: a chance to kind of touch and feel it, which
50:48
Speaker 2: is great a great reason to go to an event,
50:51
Speaker 2: an event like the Overland Expo or a couple of
50:54
Speaker 2: the other four or five dozen that we've identified. Give
50:57
Speaker 2: people a chance to see it, to touch it, to
50:59
Speaker 2: feel it, to understand stand.
51:00
Speaker 1: How it works, and for you to get their feedback. Right,
51:02
Speaker 1: that's a great opportunity and listen, listen to your customers.
51:05
Speaker 2: And then that eventually is going to trickle down to
51:08
Speaker 2: the bottom of the funnel, which is ideally a purchase.
51:11
Speaker 2: If you can understand that, it's very difficult to find
51:14
Speaker 2: success by just injecting yourself into the middle of the.
51:18
Speaker 1: Funnel or only one part of the funnel.
51:20
Speaker 2: You really need to if you can with time and resources,
51:24
Speaker 2: if you can utilize that entire funnel, you're going to
51:27
Speaker 2: have more longevity beyond that that purchase that you want
51:33
Speaker 2: to have repeat purchases. You want to have some brand loyalty,
51:36
Speaker 2: and we see it all the time where people become
51:39
Speaker 2: brand loyalists where every accessory on their truck is from arb,
51:43
Speaker 2: you know, from a specific company and whatever it might be,
51:47
Speaker 2: and you just kind of they're like, they're like, Nope,
51:49
Speaker 2: that's a lot of consumer that's what I do. And
51:52
Speaker 2: we see it with clothing too. Everybody's wearing you know,
51:55
Speaker 2: cool clothing and they and they you know or arctics
51:58
Speaker 2: everything from the beanie hat to the shoes everything in between, right,
52:02
Speaker 2: and so know that this type of consumer, once they
52:05
Speaker 2: identify a brand or a product that's going to work
52:09
Speaker 2: for them, they will continue to go back to that.
52:12
Speaker 1: Well, and I think a lot of those companies also
52:14
Speaker 1: do a good job of playing the long game of
52:16
Speaker 1: reinforcing the values of their brand. They do use the
52:19
Speaker 1: whole funnel like a like an AARB is a great
52:21
Speaker 1: example of that. They participate across the industry in ways
52:25
Speaker 1: to work with influencers, work with traditional media, work with podcasts,
52:29
Speaker 1: work with all of the different levels of the funnel, events,
52:32
Speaker 1: et cetera. To make sure that they reinforce the values
52:35
Speaker 1: of the AIRB brand across such a large audience.
52:39
Speaker 2: We've seen a lot of good success in the overland
52:42
Speaker 2: space and the general outdoor space, a lot of spaces
52:45
Speaker 2: where the brand kind of creates its own community for
52:49
Speaker 2: people to identify with and then they feel the sense
52:52
Speaker 2: of belonging connected to a brand. And then that you
52:55
Speaker 2: know that has a lot of longevity.
52:57
Speaker 1: To its I think it does, Yeah, it really does. Well.
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Speaker 1: Those are all great insights Brian, we could talk for
53:02
Speaker 1: hours about this because this is what we do. This
53:05
Speaker 1: is like I wake up in the morning, I make
53:06
Speaker 1: my cup of coffee and I go to work every day.
53:10
Speaker 1: I work in the Overland space and so does Brian,
53:12
Speaker 1: and we're here to help. If there's something we can
53:14
Speaker 1: do to support your small business, please let us know.
53:17
Speaker 1: How do people reach you, Brian.
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Speaker 2: Probably easiest way is email, which is it's Brian Bran
53:23
Speaker 2: at Overland International dot com. We've also got all of
53:27
Speaker 2: our social media channels. You can send us a direct
53:29
Speaker 2: message there and reach out to me.
53:30
Speaker 1: That's right. And if you've got a question for me
53:33
Speaker 1: on the areas that I have knowledge around, which are
53:35
Speaker 1: very few compared to Brian, you can reach me Scott
53:38
Speaker 1: dot a dot Brady on Instagram. Happy to help, especially
53:41
Speaker 1: small businesses. We really value their introduction into the space.
53:45
Speaker 1: We always want to support, solease let us know if
53:47
Speaker 1: you've got something new to.
53:48
Speaker 2: To see the community continue to grow, right.
53:51
Speaker 1: All right, Brian, thank you so much. Thanks well, thank
53:53
Speaker 1: you all for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.