Gear Models

[Koda]

What I always think of when I see these ads is the reality of actually hiking with a real pack loaded to the pictured size in that kind of terrain those hot sexy models would be sweating and covered in trail dirt…

Love Roys comments, hilarious.

[Lurch]

For gear companies I think Moosejaw has marketing genius in it's blood..

[Koda]

agree with Lurch, and BTW Lurch thanks for the "hush money" discount code..

[forester]

Up until roughly 1980 REI used their regular employees for their catalog photos. No doubt they preferred their better-looking employees to the lopsided ones, but they didn't hire models back then. It was considered a perk because instead of going to work you got paid to go fool around outdoors.

IMO, they should still do this. Otherwise, their catalogs look like everyone else's when the company is supposed to be different. It would be cool if they used their employees to do the gear modelling still. Would help set them apart among overly-corporate competition.

[renegadepilgrim]

I'm more of a fan of this video....

http://youtu.be/9uNaSIaHI_Y

[Charley]

I don't know. I guess I always hold my trekking poles wrong. Little harm seems to come of it!

[sprengers4jc]

I always hike with a nice shirt underneath a jacket. Look out Brad Pitt.



I thought the same when I saw this catalog. Perhaps they expect women to flock en masse into first their stores, and then the woods, in search of this guy?

[Lumpy]

Show me one of these hot sexy models in the outdoor gear I need immediately after they have fallen face down in a gooey mud puddle or doing a turtle imitation after slipping on that one little section of snow they didn't expect to find on the trail and I'll begin to entertain the possibility that these photo shoots reflect any kind of reality.

[Lumpy]

Perhaps they expect women to flock en masse into first their stores, and then the woods, in search of this guy?

No, they expect the guys to believe that if they buy the gear the guy in the photo has, they'll become him.

Women already know where the hot guys are. Hot guys already know where the women are. This stuff is for those caught outside of hotness, but want to buy their way in somehow. I expect it to get worse after "Wild" hits theaters. That movie will be a huge boon for REI et al.