How LOGE Camps built a Hospitality Brand for People who want to Get Outside but Stay Inside
How good brand company, community and co-creators can build a strong brand, fast
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LOGE Camps offer lessons for building brands capitalizing on the great outdoors trend, imparting a sense of place in their brand experience experience, and hiring mission-aligned employees to scale a brand experience
Who will love this
âșïž People with more outdoor gear than sense (hi, itâs me)
đ The adventure planner in the group chat
đ Outdoor brands who want to capitalize on the post-pandemic outdoor renaissance
đ IRL retailers
Today
I love the outdoors. But I also love a shower.Â
My favorite holiday ever: running between rifugios (mountain huts) in the Dolomites. A character building day running trail (or clinging to via ferratas) plus a hot meal. BELLISIMO.
I digress.
Hereâs the thing. The pandemic changed us: we got back to nature in a big way, and itâs one of the things I think weâll see more of in 2024. Proof đ
đïž Camping booking service Hipcamp nearly doubled its listings since 2019, and bookings grew sevenfold in that time (Source NYT)
đž Outdoor category revenues are up 24 percent on pre-pandemic times (Source: The State of Fashion 2024)
đ§„Trade activity for outdoor apparel brands Salomon, Arcâteryx and The North Face is up 800% on resale platform StockX (Source: The State of Fashion 2024)
But letâs be honest. Lots of people love being outside. Not everyone loves sleeping outside.
Todayâs brand is instructive for: brands building their position through collabs, people thinking about how to brand a physical space, and brands who want to build a sense of locality.
LOGE Camps are a niche hospitality brand that started in 2017 with a single property in Westport, a surf town on the coast of Washington. Today they have 6 properties and 14 in development.
Pull up a stump đȘ” letâs get into it.
Three Ways LOGE Camps Build their Brand
1. Good Brand Company
No brand exists in isolation from culture, other brands, or its audience. The brands your brand rubs metaphorical shoulders with (whether youâre stocking them or working with them in official collabs) is a creative platform that can strengthen and extend your brand. When you donât have a lot of existing brand equity, this strategy can do a lot of heavy lifting: youâre borrowing equity from the brands youâre hanging out with.
The best brand partners are:
Brand aligned (similar ethos)
Aesthetic aligned (aesthetic connection)
Culturally aligned (make you relevant and current)
LOGE keeps company with other outdoor brands like RUMPL, Miir, YETI, Kammock, and Biolite. What all these brands have in common? Theyâre all luxe outdoor brands. Bang on target for LOGEâs target.
If you want to be in a room with a customer, our customer has to open their door and the first thing they need to think is, âAwesome, sweet, Iâm so glad this Yeti cooler is here. I can use it this weekend on my adventures.â - Johannes Ariens, Outside
Remember: The brands that you associate with signal your values.Â
2. Community: Act Local
How do you build a sense of local-ness as a brand new IRL space?
Itâs easy for a brand to claim âweâre about communityâ butâŠwhat does that even mean?Â
LOGE optimize for a sense of local community by partnering with not-for-profits and artists who share their values and let them borrow cred to make community and outdoor claims. This move has a dual purpose: it brings new audiences to LOGE, and builds goodwill and equity for LOGE as an environmentally and community minded brand.
3. Hire Co-Creators of your Brand Experience
Your people are the embodiment of your brand. How you hire can be a filter for finding the right people.
Early hires set the tone for the business. In a business delivering experiences (fitness studios, hospitality), customer-facing folks play a critical role in building your brand: theyâre a touchpoint and a representation of your brand. Barryâs and SoulCycle are masters at this. LOGEâs career page is the perfect example of a young company being ultra clear on who theyâre for and why they exist: hiring folks that fit this description will bolster their brand.
Three things to love & learn from đ
1ïžâŁ Make a wishlist of brands in your universe that amplify your brand positioning. If youâre branding a physical space, choosing the brands you work with is a perfect opportunity to signal your values. Itâs all in the details. If youâre a sustainable hotel for example, stock interesting, eco-conscious soap (heyyy Dr. Bronnerâs).
2ïžâŁ Brand experience non-negotiables. Location is critical to LOGE Camps success, making people feel theyâre having a local experience is part of their secret sauce. Define the non-negotiable pillars of your brand experience that youâd want to keep if you were to scale 10x, 100x, 1000x. What remains the same?
3ïžâŁ Write a job description to attract brand evangelists. In my opinion writing killer job descriptions that describe a companyâs mission is one of the most useful skills a founder or a young brand can add to their toolkit. Goal: attract people who buy into the mission and can help scale it. Practice by writing a job description that talks about the types of people youâre looking for and the mission you want them to join on.
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Thatâs all! âïž Thanks for your time.
Amanda
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