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⛰️ How Mountain Gazette used Brand to Revive an Indie Print Magazine and Build a Cult Following ⛷️

Or how an underdog story, fabulous merch and a razor sharp point of view made indie print great again

April 19, 2024

Mountain Gazette is an indie magazine for people with a meaningful connection to the outdoors that’s made the elusive leap from telling other people’s stories to telling a story about themselves   

Who will love this

  • Indie print lovers

  • Crampon owners

  • Haters of boring instagram ads

  • Anyone who’s ever picked up a magazine and inhaled (why do we do this?!)

  • People who love the leap from product marketing to brand marketing

Today

G’day!

🥳 Importantly, happy Taylor Swift album release day to all who celebrate. I will be dedicating my runs this week exclusively to listening to TTPD.

Speaking of the outdoors…that brings us to today’s brand: a quarterly independent broadsheet called Mountain Gazette. 

🏔️ Mountain Gazette came across my radar last month with their amazing Instagram ads, and then again while I’ve been working on a very cool indie magazine project this week. I tend to dive deep on categories when I work on them so I’ve been a little enamored with indie mags with cult followings: notably FISHO, Surfer’s Journal, Roleur.

What I love about these mags is how closely connected they are to their customers and the communities they exist in.

One of the challenges that media brands like indie mags face is what I call the “container” problem: if your brand is a business that holds content (like Netflix, a film festival, or a magazine), you risk all of your brand equity being tied up in the content that changes from season to season or issue to issue.

Mountain Gazette has solved this problem beautifully to tell their story and build on their existing cult following.

We’re going to drop in and unpack how they did it.

✌️

Amanda

Three things Mountain Gazette have done to build a strong brand

1️⃣ Have a point of view 

I had a hunch that Mountain Gazette had a point of view, but when I landed on their ‘about us’ page my spidey senses were confirmed. Mountain Gazette’s Mike Rogge makes a pretty strong statement on the magazine’s ‘about’ page: 

BLOODY BRAVO. So proud I could stand up and cheer. Strong brands require strong perspectives. Mountain Gazette have nailed their product (a great print magazine for people who have a meaningful connection to the outdoors), and their perspective (the world doesn’t need another ski resort ranking, it needs stories about the joy of going outside). Most brands are afraid of forming a sharp perspective: but it’s an essential ingredient for a strong brand!

2️⃣ Feed the fans 

Mountain Gazette have a gift in their heritage. Independent print journalism is cool, skiing is cool, reviving an old magazine loved by ski bums…and they’ve built up quite a following of people who unsolicited, tell them how much they love the magazine.

Mountain Gazette capitalizes on the fans by feeding them opportunities to belong to the brand with super fun merch.

What does one feed a fan? Merch, prints, pins - basically anything that reflects the shared beliefs of your fans. I start brand identity projects with the question: What do we believe? Who belongs? What badges signal belonging to this belief? 

The act of buying and wearing a pin, a hat, a tee shirt is such a strong signal of brand love and it’s an opportunity to reinforce belonging, help fans recognize each other, and create new meaning out of your brand. I just love their little merch shop.

3️⃣ Dramatize the origin story

Mountain Gazette have a great product, engaged readers, and great stories to tell. Here’s where a lot of brands go wrong. They market the product, but not the brand. 

Mountain Gazette do the opposite: they tell a great story about themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if MG Mike staged the purchase of the magazine in a bar for $1 just to tell the story. 

Check it out 👇

There’s always a longer story - for example Mike as editor of Mountain Gazette is a more complex origin story which is pretty cool. Mike’s written about it here, starting with him coaching a US Ski Team and ending with him getting a feature published in Mountain Gazette.

What Mountain Gazette ace is figuring out where to tell the punchy story (instagram and Meta advertising) and where to tell the longer story (on the website, for big fans and big nerds like me).

Three things to love & learn from 📚

1️⃣ Have a point of view. For Mountain Gazette, they’re super clear on what they believe: their stories are great, print ain’t dead, and that even though social media kind of sucks, there’s room for great stories to be told. Tip: start with what you’re not.

2️⃣ Build ways to belong. Mountain Gazette fans love print, mountains, and the free-spirited, independent nature of the magazine. They’ve parlayed that into their brand by building merch that reflects their beliefs. Tip: ask yourself what you believe, what your fans believe, and then look for for surfaces that make sense to reflect that belief (beanies?! key chains? Emily Sundberg did a mad roundup of merch that isn’t totes a while back. May it inspire you).

3️⃣ Invest in dramatizing the story. Dedicate a small budget to telling and testing your story. Mountain Gazette’s is fun: a great hook, strong script, and plenty of gratuitous printing press shots for lovers of broadsheets, mountains and adventure. Have fun with yours.

Need help with any of this? I help brands tell their story to the world to drive business results. Drop me a note and we can talk about how I can help.

On my mind this week

Things that caught my eye

That’s all!

✌️

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