- Post 1: The AAR: BLUF, Awesome.
- Post 2: The Speed Rucker: BLUF, Has… Potential.
- Post 3: The RWC vs. The Star Course: BLUF, Same-Same, But Different.
- Post 4 (⇠You Are Here): In Which I Have Serious Doubts As to the Professional Competence, Nay, EXISTENCE of GORUCK’s Marketing Department w.r.t. This Event. (Scrubbed of Bad Words on the Off Chance That Anybody Who May Work There Sees This) [Odd Capitalization Not Because I Am Either Old-Timey or German But Because This is Technically a {Sub}Title]
Just to be clear, the event itself was awesome, as’ve been all the GORUCK events I’ve done. (I’ve done somewhere between the median and the mean, I’d guesstimate.) Lots of fun, very nicely organized (even the parts that we initially thought were a bit iffy turned out to be actually quite solid) and a great – and tough – field. And, despite our occasional quibbles with particular pieces of gear, GORUCK makes very nice stuff – there’s a reason everyone in the family has a ton of it, from OG discontinued stuff like the Man Tie up to the latest pants and rucks.
I’ve also gotta give a special, specific shout-out to Cadre Mocha Mike – from chatting with him afterwards about differences between the Star Courses and the RWC, and the various considerations taken into account when planning the event, to how he went above and beyond the week afterwards, it was all a top-shelf class act, just amazing. (Seriously – he spent the weekend doing the event, then spent his birthday with his family, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, and the very next day he’s reaching out to all the participants with the spreadsheet of official finishing times and all of the photos and videos he took.)
That said, the handling of this event by HQ – specifically whomever’s responsible for social media, publicity / promotion, and general coverage – was abysmal. Correction, would have been abysmal, if it – the handling of it – had in fact existed at all, in any form whatsoever.
The Before Times
I’m not gonna subject myself to Facebook’s search “functionality” or manually trawling the GORUCK / Tribe pages, but based on my GMail, there wasn’t any publicity about it after the initial announcement – no emails, so presumably no Facebook posts, Instagrams, whatever, whether from HQ, CSR Marketing, Event Ops, whomever.
Which, I totally get. It was announced more than a year out and, well, we all know what happened starting in the first few months of 2020.
So it’s reasonable that you wouldn’t put a lot of effort into pushing an in-person event as a deadly airborne viral pandemic burns and the entire world locks down. Heck, it was still up in the air (that… was not intentional) if it would be go/no-go until a month before the event, when it was postponed to 2021.
(And big props to Cadre Mocha Mike for pushing for the postponement – I’d been wondering about what role DC’s quarantine requirements [two weeks for a large number of states, at the time] might have played, but he said the driver for kicking it forward a year was the potential for unrest after the election. Which, yeah, turned out not to be that weekend, but overall? Good lookin’ out.)
Quick Maffs
Entry fee was $169. First… some number also got a Speed Rucker as part of that. Prize pool across all three divisions was $15,000. Being conservative and ignoring taxes, supplies, permits, Cadre travel & lodging, amortized / pro rata overhead, to say nothing of any desired profit margin, that meant there needed to be about 100 participants just to break even.
186 people originally signed up, which had dropped to 135 by the time of the event, with only 64 showing up. That’s… not great. It’s definitely less overhead than Nasty 001, but it’s still not really… sustainable, which would be a shame if it ended up that way, because it was an awesome event. (My notes also have 184 originally signing up, 166 RSVPing, and then 132 before the event, with the same 64 showing up. Bottom line, even using the first, earliest, highest number, the math is still… worrying.)
Publicity
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What?
Seriously, there were no emails, no official posts on Facebook or Tweets, or whatever, nothing of that. I’ve said that before but… well, this entire post will basically be me saying that in various ways from various angles, because hopefully a several-thousand-word dissection and critique will carry more weight than Tweeting something like: “Had a great time at GORUCK’s Rucking World Championships! Next time, maybe tell people about it?”
“It’s easy to criticize…”
Oh, it absolutely is. It’s also great for blowing off frustration over how a great event could’ve been epic. That said, I get where you’re coming from, Imaginary J. StrawMan, so here ya go – (in no particular order)
Gear Tent
You’re already setting up a decent base camp / ENDEX location (so you have some logistics on-site, tents, tables, etc.), and unlike a Challenge or other event, you’ll likely have a fair number of a) friends, family, and other crew and b) people who’ve finished the event hanging out. Bring along a big ol’ duffel bag, foot locker, whatever of gear. Let people try it out, show off the new stuff, answer questions and go over the design. Heck, offer a token discount for placing an order at the event or for buying one of the samples, maybe.
Especially since lots of people at an event like RWC are “new” to GORUCK, it’s a great way to officially introduce them to the brand and its offerings. (Heck, you could also offer rucks / shirts / whatever as the prizes at Star Courses in lieu of store credit – I don’t know the accounting, but I bet it could work out better for the bottom line, and getting a physical thing for placing is a much better feeling than “here’s a slip of paper, email customer service and they’ll get the credit put on your account(s)…”)
Interviews
Interview the winners! The participants! Don’t just take a couple of podium snapshots. One, it’s a great way to connect the new participants to the GRT culture – they didn’t get to spend the previous 10, 12, whatever hours alongside a Cadre, so they get a little concentrated dose. Two, you get a whole ton of grist for the marketing mill – after Selection, how many dozens of emails featured “As Seen At Selection” tags or blurbs from participants? Grab quotes, product close-ups, etc. from the finishers.
Three, it’s a great opportunity for free market and product research. My completely anecdotal sense is that you have a much higher proportion of (relatively) non-GRTs at an event like RWC. Ultrarunners, triathletes, etc. (That said, yeah, there’s a lot of overlap.)
They’re going to have the perfect outside perspective on the gear – they’ve got the chops and experience with a wide range of stuff for comparison, both in terms of equipment and activities, but they’re relatively new to GORUCK itself and so they’ll be looking at it with fresh eyes. Fresh, but knowledgeable, eyes.
(As a couple of weirdos who devote, honestly, probably more time to figuring out how best to attach the sloths to our packs than to the rest of our gear combined, we’re, uh, not including ourselves in that group.)
Coverage
It’s at least nominally the World Championships of rucking. Have at least some semi-official Shadow Company there to livestream it, cover it, whatever. Sure, there were weirdos and friends-and-family of weirdos posting stuff, but if it’s a top-tier event, cover it like one. Pictures, video, what-have-you. (And, while you’re at it, maybe be a little bit better at cleaning out the phishing links to fake livestreams that were posted to the event page? Seriously, I was excited to be able to point my grandmother to some coverage until I realized that it was some random Indian FB account spoofing a CrossFit web-zine…)
Literally an Ultramarathon
There’s a shockingly deep and very quickly growing ultramarathon community (see above) that would absolutely have been down for a race like this. Admittedly, I can see some potential for issues with the GORUCK-only requirement for packs, but stuff like offering the Speed Rucker with the event registration could go some ways towards mitigating that and, honestly, even if it’s not pushed out to the nebulous marketing-speak “ultrarunning segment”, it could at least have been listed on places like ultrasignup.com or other race-registration websites. Let people stumble across it, at least!
HOLD 2022 AT JACKSONVILLE!
Now, heat may be a bit of a concern, true, but let’s break it down:
- It’s GORUCK’s flagship event for 2022. Big, huge, multi-day extravaganza. Perfect place to hold a capstone event that’s not Selection.
- Everyone will be there – all the Cadre, Jason, Monster, you name it. People will be traveling in for it anyways, so it won’t be as much of a hurdle getting there. (Yeah, some people were flying in for RWC from Salt Lake City, Houston, etc., but I can’t help but think that travel may have kept some people from coming out just for the one event.)
- It’s not the weekend before Thanksgiving.
- You can do it in the daytime, with spectators, and full coverage and such! (With family and friends hanging out and/or crewing, you already have more people effectively shadowing RWC than a Challenge or even a Star Course, and the public, daylit setting may help with the theorized dampening effect on the Individual Women’s field.)
- Puts it at the opposite end of the year from Selection in October.
Keep People Updated
To paraphrase a common r/relationshipadvice and r/watchpeopledieinside trope, the details of an event like this can, and probably should to some extent, be a surprise. The fact that the event itself will be held, and has not been cancelled/postponed, should not be a surprise.
After the second RSVP in October, there was nothing. Crickets. The best evidence that the event was still on up until about a week out was second-hand stuff from a random DC Ruck Club member volunteering. If you’re sending out an RSVP, follow up – let people know that you’ve got the critical mass for the event or, if not, what the story is. The event also didn’t have the usual Friday-before automated email “Here are your Cadre and Start Point…” (nor did it have the after-the-event follow-up, and I devoutly hope that not everybody is taking the tack I am here in terms of feedback quantity / initiative because, lateness aside, I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time & energy on this for what it is).
All it takes is a brief blurb on the event page on Facebook or in an email saying “Yup, we’re a go! See you then!”. As it was, I reached out to Customer Service on Sunday – there was nothing official until the Tuesday before the event. And speaking of Facebook…
Social Media
I’m not a huge fan of it, but if you use it? USE IT. Post on Twitter about the event, before and after. Give out hashtags for it. You have a Facebook page for the company, and have employees in positions of respect on the Tough / Tribe page(s). POST ABOUT IT THERE! Spread the word about it, because there was basically nothing apart from a link under the “Events” tab.
(I recognize that this is verging back into pure “criticism” territory rather than anything “constructive”, but I’m honestly struggling here to come up with any sort of internal structure on which to hang my hat or to explicate further when the core issue is, literally, “You guys didn’t publicize the event at all. You probably… should have done that.”)
Literally Publicize the Event at All, in Any Way Shape or Form
A’ight so, at the risk of sounding a bit like a dick (and I’m not great at Twitter or Facebook posts, so I won’t embarrass myself offering samples of those, but you can probably see where I’m going with this), here are the emails I got from GORUCK in the week or two before Rucking Worlds.
November 2, 2021: “Tested & Proven at the Rogue Invitational”
Now, admittedly, there may have been partnership issues here as a sponsor of the CrossFit games, but – RUNNING WITH A RUCKSACK! A “long running movement”! BOOM! Perfect place to mention – even if it’s just a blurb at the bottom of the email – the upcoming World Championships.
November 3, 2021: “Sandbags: Proven at GORUCK Selection”
All right, I’ll give them this one. Hard to link sandbags into RWC. That said –
– if you put this at a bottom, why not a plug for RWC!?
November 5, 2021: “The Reason Our Jeans Are Collecting Dust”
There were plenty of people wearing long pants at RWC, and the email included blurbs about wearing them at Challenges and Selection. You know what also involves long movements with a rucksack, in weather that might make you think twice about wearing shorts? Yeah.
November 6, 2021: “CHAD 1000X: Are You In?”
Yeah, I can see not including a cross-promotion for another event here. But that said, I could also see having a similar email devoted to that event, i.e., RWC.
November 8-11, 2021
Two (2) emails about the warehouse flash sale, one about the GR1’s history specifically, and one for Veterans’ Day. Nothing that screamed out to be linked to RWC, and there weren’t any other events being plugged in the emails (other than mention made of Challenges w.r.t. the GR1), so all right, nothing to tweak here.
November 17, 2021: “Behind the Scenes: Developing MACV-1”
It’s a whole email drop devoted to a rucking boot. Two days before the world championships of rucking. No mention is made of that rucking event; the event plug at the bottom is for Sandlot in Jacksonville in April of 2022.
MENTION IT HERE!!!!! “The perfect boot for rucking, whether it’s around town, at a Challenge, or even competing at the World Championships <insert link/plug>.” Boom. There it is.
November 18, 2021: [Another pants email.]
See November 5’s entry.
November 20 & 21, 2021: “Indestructible Grid Fleece Full Zip” and “Ballistic Trainers: Created with the GORUCK Athlete in Mind”
You know what event was pretty cold – maybe no-one had to get in the water, but I know at least Cadre Igor was commenting on the temperature… – ? Yup! (Incidentally, you know what is a great time to sell someone a hoodie? When they’re standing around in the cold with a bunch of cool gear to look over, including said hoodie(s).)
And then the trainers… There is literally a picture of a person running, presumably with a ruck –
– but nothing about the ruck race held the weekend before. Admittedly, lots of the top teams wear some sort of trail-running shoes. Hokas, Altras, etc. That just helps to push the shoe – if you don’t want to go for the MACV-1 boot, bam, there’s a shoe option that’s, again, designed from the ground up for running and rucking. (I’m sure there’s some psychological thing about how adding an option in this context can shift preference away from what would otherwise / still might be the “rationally preferred” option or whatever, but… <shruggie>.)
You Get the Idea
None of this is to drag the event itself or Cadre Mocha Mike or Igor, or any of the other people, at GORUCK or volunteering in DC, who helped to make it an amazing night. The RWCs were awesome, and we had a blast. Everything went smoothly, it was fun, and even the parts that initially made me furrow my brow a bit, not only did they turn out to be excellent & awesome, too, I realized afterwards that yeah, they were definitely the correct way to go and they (Cadre Mocha Mike & Igor) knew exactly what they were doing.
And, who knows – I don’t run a business, so for all I know there could be some internal reason why all this (didn’t) happen. All I know is that I really didn’t see anything put out there about the event, and it was an awesome event, that really should – could – have had more people knowing about it and showing up at it. And, while – again – I don’t run a business, I do know that more people registering means more money coming in, and more people knowing about something and seeing your stuff means more people buying it, so…
BLUF @ The End
But, perhaps more importantly, if we can’t get people from the community to show up to real world events anymore, we should probably concentrate most of our energies elsewhere. We’ll always run some Events — Selection, Bragg Heavy, NYC 9/11, Rucking World Championships and Normandy 50 Miler plus many more — but our appetite to keep throwing parties you don’t want will go down. Communities strengthen when we show up, and they fracture when we don’t.
Jason’s “State of GORUCK” Preview, emphases added
A fitting counterpoint was provided elsewhere on the Tough/Tribe page, where someone referred to Rucking World Championships and was met with a response of “World championships? WDYM?”
That, uh, should not have been a thing that was made able to have happened. (Words have escaped me.)
In other words, it’s not like RWC was an afterthought or anything. GORUCK is having issues with getting people to come out to events, RWC is one of their “premier” / core events, and yet…
Don Norum 