18.05.12

I’ve had the opportunity to go to OR the last couple rounds, and have seen how many “action sports” brands are coming into that space, finding a viable way to extend their reach and talk to people they might not have been able to before. Why has Burton decided to exhibit there this winter?

It’s a very credible space for Burton. We’re pretty much the most legitimate backcountry brand in the world when it comes to snowboarding. We’ve always told our message to the snowsports community, but we haven’t really come into the outdoor space. We find there are a lot of enthusiasts that are more from the outdoor side and it’s really picking up—whether it’s the splitboarding craze or a lot of our technical garments. For us, it was a way to widen our scope of specialty distribution and provide a new alternative for the outdoor channel.

What will you guys be showcasing there?

We’re going after it a little differently than SIA—we’re going after it more with our backcountry products. There’s a huge section around AK. We’re grounding it around a concept we’re launching on our hardgoods side called The Family Tree—an assortment of backcountry boards, a lot of stuff we work on with Terje [Haakonsen], that don’t get a lot of face time. At core retailers, everyone wants to look at the next park board. We put a lot of engineering and time into the Fish and bringing out so many cool quivers of boards that you can use in the backcountry, so we’re going to really anchor it around that technology story. That drives a lot of excitement coming into Outdoor, who likes to talk a little bit more tech.

Source: Transworld Business