SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, CA (BRAIN)—Outdoor Retailer (OR), a division of Nielsen Business Media, has signed Utah-based Soar Communications as its public relations agency of record.
Under terms of the multi-year agreement, Soar Communications (a full-service marketing communications agency), will develop and execute public relations campaigns serving each of OR's annual events, as well as all of its year-round PR needs.
"During the past three years, Soar Communications has generated great results for our sister shows—Interbike and Health+Fitness Business Expo—so it's clear they understand the specialty sports marketplace and our culture," said Kenji Haroutunian, OR's show director. "Naturally, we're looking for similar results from Soar with Outdoor Retailer, both in solidifying our support for trade media journalists, while also broadening our efforts to reach consumer-focused media outlets throughout the U.S. and abroad. As expected, Soar has already hit the ground running on some key OR and industry initiatives. We look forward to a long and successful relationship with the Soar team."
Formed in 2004, Soar Communications serves the sports, outdoor, athletics and recreation industries, thus their name.
"After attending my first OR (Summer Market) in 2004, I soon discovered that there wasn't a single agency in recreation-rich Utah that focused specifically on servicing the sports, outdoor, athletics and/or recreation industries," said David Politis, chief executive officer for Soar Communications. "That led me to form Soar in the first place, which is why it's so cool to now be working with OR and the great OR team. I feel like I've now gone full circle back to Soar's very first beginnings, and that's just awesome."
As well as being the chief executive officer of Draper, Utah-based Soar Communications, Politis is the president and founder of Politis Communications (a long-time strategic communications and public relations agency focused on serving technology clients).
A year after forming Soar, Politis invited Chip Smith to take the position of president at Soar, thus leveraging Smith's nearly 20 years of marketing and sales experience, including 10 years with bicycle industry leaders Shimano and Specialized and three years with Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest agencies in the world. The resulting combination of Politis and Smith has helped transform Soar Communications into one of the up-and-coming sports marketing communications agencies in North America.
"We're excited to take the lessons we've learned with Interbike and HFB and apply them to OR," Smith said. "Naturally, Soar will continue to serve the media in a collaborative manner that best meets their needs, while always looking for the best ways to land positive media exposure for the show and its exhibitors. We're also eager to help Kenji and his team achieve their goals of further strengthening the relationships between OR exhibitors and endemic media, while also expanding exposure to non-endemic journalists as well."
