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How, when and where did Poler first start? So we started brainstorming the concept late 2009 in Portland oregon. Myself and the other co-founder, Benji Wagner, met in 2007ish through mutual buds and became fast friends. We would hang out often and constantly come up with ideas for a new brand. Benji's father ran a hand warmer biz at the time and is a pretty savvy guy. He noticed most of the major snow gloves had a pocket for hand warmers and hit up his son to see about getting some contacts at those companies. I grew up in the snow/skate world and had quite a few friends at those gloves companies, so I was helping facilitate those contacts. His dads idea was, he would make branded hand warmers for say, Burton, Dakine, etc. None of the companies bit on the idea, but through the process Benji and I came up with some ideas of our own and his father had the idea of us starting our own hand warmer company. So we got to work and started Poler as an air activated hand warmer company. But, throughout this timeframe we had been scheming up Poler as a camping brand. We sold hand warmers for about 9 months while we developed the camp products we wanted to launch with and ended up launching the brand at SIA in 2011.
Poler offerings today go from all the usual camping essentials like tents and sleeping bags to intricate accessories like a sandwich maker or lantern style lamp. What was the first product Poler ever put on the market back when it first started? So yeah, an air activated hand warmer was our first product. It came in a resealable bag so you could use it for a bit, put it back in the bag, seal it up and use it again later. Most people don't know you can do that, use it for a bit periodically and still get the full time length out of it. How did your product offering evolve with time, and what was the strategy behind it? I've always taken a very pragmatic approach to product design. With our pinnacle product, the napsack. I tried to make it as useable as possible with no extra fluff. Just a clean and simple design that works. I've never been a fan of extra BS with product design. So on the evolution with our products, my strategy has always been from a very basic standpoint with the function over fashion approach.
Is Poler the first brand to introduce the hooded sleeping bag to the market? No. There is a high end down products company out of Seattle that's had a similar product since the late 90's. The concept comes from European military where soldiers would sit around in the trenches and needed to stay warm, but able to flee if needed. So the bags had an open bottom so soldiers could cinch it up and run and the bags had arms so they could use their weapons.
How did the idea for the Poncho and the Napsack come about? The original idea for the Napsack came from a snowboard trip to Alaska. We had gone to our good buds bachelor party in Girdwood and stayed in our local friend's cabin. It was pretty rustic with a wood stove being the only heat source, so mornings were pretty cold. We had a crew of about 20 guys and quite a few of us worked at the same snowboard/ski/mountaineering shop. Every morning was crazy cold and you just didn't want to get out of your sleeping bag. My BFF Jeff, whose party it was, had this insane down bag that you could pop your arms out of and the bottom was open so you could cinch it around your waist and walk without getting out of the sleeping bag. I had never seen anything like it and was very jealous. When we asked him where he got it, he said the shop we all work at. We had no idea it was sold there, as we were the snowboard guys and it was in the mountaineering section. The bag was super high end with maybe 800 down fill, very soft and lofty. So being a product guy I told myself if I ever had the opportunity to make a product with similar features, I would do it. When we started conceptualizing Poler the napsack was the nucleus of the whole brand. So The Napsack became a reality as a price point functional sleeping bag. The Poncho came later, around 2016, as we were trying to develop a counterpart to the Napsack. We saw a need to expand our Cozy stuff line and develop a utilitarian piece as a poncho/blanket that had tons of functionality.
Poler is known for having a huge presence on social media. What’s the story with the #Campvibes hashtag? Campvibes all started on a car ride from the Denver airport to the SIA trade show in 2011. I had to make an airport run from the convention center to pick up a few friends and on the way back to the show I was telling my friends that we were searching for a brand slogan. Like "Just do it" is to Nike. Lots of things started flying out of everyone's mouth with nothing that really spoke to us. Then our friend Clayton, who is our current North West rep, threw out Campvibes! I knew that was it the moment he said it. We ran with the hashtag and created #adventuremobile as well. Through those two hashtags we had a massive amount of content to pull from everyday on social media. Did the brand expect that hashtag to become this viral? No, not at all. We hoped it would, but had no idea. When we started on instagram I knew what we needed to do and the timing was perfect with it being such a new platform. But I didn't think it would catch like it did. I think #campvibes has surpassed the brand massively. Lots of folks out there have no idea it's the Poler's brand slogan. I recently saw a major department store here in the US rip it off on a tee shirt.
How is Poler bridging the gap between action sports and outdoors sports? I have always been an avid camper and grew up in action sports. For years I noticed a need for more camping type products in lifestyle/action brands, but around 2009 I started to realize the massive hole between action sports and outdoor. Growing up in skate/snow/surf you tend to latch on to your favorite brands at a fairly young age and the smaller, cooler upstart brands tend to be what sets the trends in each sport. You, in a sense, grow up with those brands and don't really shop outside of the lifestyle/action sports brand offerings. So when you go to buy outdoor gear, there isn't really anything offered by your favorite brands and you shop outside of them. And within the outdoor product market there are a ton of great companies with amazing products, but the 2 biggest companies tend to be the ones that set the trends, patagonia and the North Face. Kind of a bit opposite of action sports where the smaller brands are the hype. So our vision was to create a fun outdoor company with good basic camping products, but it has the vibe of a skate company. So we've always tried to develop products that fit that space.
Do you have a skateboarding and snowboarding team? We do! We call it the Tent team and it's chalked full of professional athletes, photographers and influencers. What can we expect from Poler in 2024? The biggest push from us will be moving into more sustainable products. We have been slowly moving that direction for a few years now and are currently developing our Fall 23 and Spring 24 lines with much more recycled content, from fabrics, to trims and insulation. There is so much waste in this world and as a brand it's our responsibility to be as mindful as possible when it comes to our planet. If there are recycled options out there, you have to use them. It's that simple. If it costs a bit more, so be it. And it's not really that much more money typically. Outside of that, we are going to be expanding our product line quite a bit. Focusing more on apparel, headwear and printables as well as continuing to grow our camping product line. We are also going to be doing more projects with our tent team and collab partners. And one of my biggest focused projects will be partnering with an auto company to do something with adventuremobile. We started the hashtag and have never really done much with it outside of using it on social media.
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