Smartwool Employees Innovatively Document the Brand's 300-mile Bike Trek with Cinebody

“I am literally sitting at my kitchen table crying. Thank you, thank you! LOVE. This place. These people. This Ride. This brand.”

That’s just one of the many reactions from Smartwool employees after previewing the video that they not only starred in, but also helped create, using Cinebody.

The 60-second video for the Colorado-based clothing brand chronicled their annual “Ride to OR,” a company bike excursion from their Steamboat Springs headquarters to the Outdoor Retailer Show in Denver, Colorado - one of the largest outdoor trade shows in the United States.

Every summer for the last 12 years, Smartwool employees, retailers and partners pedaled across 300-miles of long, desolate roads and high, mountain passes to truly embrace the brand’s mantra of “Go far. Feel good.”

But for this year’s ride, the brand wanted to chronicle more than just the journey…they wanted to capture the culture, challenges, and camaraderie from the point of view of the 72 participating riders.

Using Cinebody, each participant filmed themselves throughout each day of the four-day ride, capturing authentic moments, beautiful scenery and of course, celebratory beers at the end of each grueling day.

“We chose Cinebody for this project because there’s nothing else like it. There’s no other way we could’ve captured so many intimate moments as fast as we did,” said Laura Rysz, Digital Marketing Manager for Smartwool. “The app was so easy to use throughout the ride that everyone could just focus on enjoying the experience and sharing their perspective as it happened. People were excited to share their personal stories and help co-create something really special.”

As the footage captured by the riders uploaded to the Cinebody platform automatically, the brand pulled and posted raw clips on their social media channels each day to showcase the adventure. By the time the final bikers arrived in Denver, Smartwool had amassed over 670 clips, enabling the brand to quickly produce an authentic recap of the company’s journey, created by the people who actually lived it.

“Using Cinebody for the Ride to OR plays right into our digital media strategies around leveraging user-generated content in innovative ways, distributing content in real-time, and giving our consumers an inside look at what makes our brand unique. It captured the essence of our culture and how our employees truly live it,” Rysz said.