Well, he IS using a rope here…
The smart money isn’t lining up to defend Clif Bar, which two weeks ago suddenly dropped the contracts of five of its sponsored climbers, Steph Davis, Alex Honnold, Timmy O’Neill, Dean Potter, and Cedar Wright, saying that their free soloing and high lining were too risky to continue to support. I’m neither smart nor moneyed, and I’m not going to defend Clif Bar’s actions (nor would I think of criticizing the climbers’ individual decisions to do what they do). But as all this was going down I found myself thinking about a personal experience, which would seem to bear no relation to Clif Bar, but in fact, I think, is bound up in the same notions of risk assessment and underlying philosophy that led Clif to make a hard though wildly unpopular decision. I do think that Clif’s action, even if bungled, was important, and the controversy over Clif’s move and the ensuing discussion have raised critical but little addressed considerations.
My incident occurred years ago on the east side of the Monte Rosa, many thousands of feet above the tiny village of Alagna, Italy. Joe Sagona, a frequent travel companion, and I were far off-piste and going farther, following a guide-in-training through a series of notches, faces, and more notches, trailing this newbie we’d just met because his mentor, our nominal guide, had something else to do that day (like lead people who actually paid him). We came to one especially steep pitch with massive exposure below, and the young Swedish guide-to-be started digging in the snow to set up a deadman anchor so we could rap through the exposure without worrying about a fall, which most assuredly would have been fatal.
Joe is an insanely good skier, and he was willing to drop into the pitch without protection. I am not insanely good. Oh, I can ski, and I like steeps, but I’m intimately aware of my weaknesses, of the potential for pilot error, and as I stood there watching the guide trying to figure out the deadman, I pondered which was sketchier, just skiing the thing or relying on an anchor built by a guy who’d probably only seen it done. Once. Maybe.
“You know,” Joe said, looking down, “on steep, exposed stuff like this, you have to really want to ski it.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I think I want to have skied it. Key difference.”
In the end, I chose neither. I didn’t yet have the knowledge to build the anchor myself, and the guide clearly didn’t either. I told him we weren’t going to rap on a wing and prayer and that we weren’t going to ski it unprotected. He shrugged, we traversed away from the cliffs, and soon found an equally steep but unexposed pitch, which we descended without incident.
It seemed like just another day of risk assessment in the mountains, but Monte Rosa actually became profoundly important to me, one of those pivotal moments in life, because it prompted me to reevaluate my tolerances for risk and hazard, in particular because I now had young children dependent on me, but also because I finally understood that being friends with some of the best big mountain skiers in the world didn’t mean that I would ever be at their skill level. Something I knew in theory became a cold reality when I stared it in the face, and there in Italy I was finally ready to see (and act on) it.
Without question, Clif Bar booted this one. They dumped their athletes unceremoniously and seemingly without warning, leaving a bitter taste among some of those dropped – Dean Potter called the action “sleazy” in several interviews – and their continuing sponsorship of Valley Uprising, a new climbing movie from Sender Films that shows these athletes high lining and free soloing, opens them to charges of hypocrisy.
But where they drew the line is far less interesting than that they drew a line at all, something that most brands are unwilling to do for fear of alienating customers and losing a buck or two, or maybe because it wouldn’t occur to them to take a stand on anything. This is even true within the outdoor industry, which prides itself on purity of motive and lives by the assumptions that the world is a better place for what it sells or does.
And that may be correct, but today, even with soaring corporate mottos like Google’s “don’t be evil,” most companies are amoral at best, set up philosophically and legally only to make money, even when what they’re selling helps people commune with nature. B Corporations such as Patagonia, which are legally structured to help benefit society, are rare, and most companies neither know what they stand for nor care so long as they rake in the loot.
Maybe I’m naive in thinking that a brand should or could stand for something other than profits, but I don’t think so. When the economy hit the fan in 2008 and 2009, magazines and newspapers and TV were filled with stories about rekindled traditional values, of reconnecting with family, of spending time outside. Now that things are booming again, those ideals seem almost quaint, but we know that they aren’t. The purposeless life is the wasted life, and we all understand this intuitively even if we don’t live it every day. It’s what drives us to be better humans. And corporations might hide behind their logos, but they’re still made up of people, people who want their work to matter.
One reason the Clif Bar incident created such a shitstorm is that the outdoor culture worships risk-taking heroes and conversely dismisses anything less than all-out as illegitimate. When was the last time you saw an advertisement or brand video with someone walking epically down a trail? Even if we’re personally unwilling to climb without a rope, we demand it of our corporate enablers and the people they sponsor, if not through our buying decisions then certainly through our clicks and views and commentary on brand blogs and social media. The most cutting level of criticism weighed at Clif wasn’t that they coldly canned people who’d helped them become who they are but that they pussied out. “Fine,” was the overall sentiment I heard, “Red Bull will be more than happy to have these guys.”
This double standard has repercussions in the real world. It creates cultural pressure on athletes to outperform themselves and others. Only Alex Honnold or Dean Potter or Steph Davis can say what drives them, but, absolutely, their risk taking is one of the biggest things we celebrate, and the rewards, such as they are, flow to them and not to others. Athletes will always push themselves, and they’ll always make mistakes, but our obsession with the extreme certainly contributes to a shove from behind.
So Clif Bar, if their public statements are to be believed, did what all of us do and went through much the same calculus that I did on the Monte Rosa.
“Ultimately, this decision came down to a sense of responsibility to our own story,” Clif said in a statement, “what we endorse and the activities that we encourage – which is largely reflected in our sponsorship of athletes. This responsibility extends to adventurers of all types – climbers, outdoor enthusiasts, as well as children.
“We have and always will support athletes in many adventure-based sports, including climbing. And inherent in the idea of adventure is risk. We appreciate that assessing risk is a very personal decision. This isn’t about drawing a line for the sport or limiting athletes from pursuing their passions. We’re drawing a line for ourselves. We understand that this is a grey area, but we felt a need to start somewhere and start now.”
Alex Honnold, talking to the New York Times, was more forgiving than Potter. “It’s a general reflection on risk,” he said. “The risk decision that Clif is making is the same kind of decision that we all make as athletes. I think it’s completely fair for them to draw a line. It’s a very personal decision. If Clif thought about it and said that that’s the line that they want to take, I can’t begrudge that. That’s the same kind of line I draw with risk.”
It was an unpopular action, and Clif handled it poorly. Their athletes deserved better, and their ongoing support of Valley Uprising seems hollow. But Clif’s decision to set limits was a good one. It’s easy to give money to environmental and activist groups and feel good about it; it’s straightforward to set profits as your pole star. It’s much harder to say no. Have any mountain bike companies dropped freeriders because they ride off-trail? Have any ski companies cut the contracts of athletes because they’re too flippant about avalanche safety? It takes courage to risk losing money or customers, or acknowledge that you’ve reached your limit and willingly face the criticism or derision you know will come. But that’s something more companies could learn. It’s something maybe we all could.
Note to commenters: I’ve already deleted two pointlessly negative remarks. Constructive comments and criticism of the issue or my position on it are welcome; gratuitous negativity will be removed. -S.C.
Well said.
I think that the comparison to ski companies sponsoring athletes who spend a lot of time in avalanche country is a great one, and something I thought about while reading this and other articles about this controversy. Companies like Black Diamond seem to have had similar thoughts as Clif and concerns about what they sponsor and what their customers may be blindly aspiring to accomplish. But, Black Diamond has handled it in a way that builds a better understanding of the subject and doesn’t push an agenda. Take their recent Human Factor and Snow Safety campaign as an example of a well handled delve into informing customers about an incredibly important topic (that is at times antithetical to what their athletes and other advertisements convey) while still advertising their brand. Now, how you adapt that to be about free-soloing awareness is a hard question to answer.
The difference between ski companies (or gear/ apparel companies) is that CLIF is not in the gear industry. One could argue it’s not even in the “outdoor” industry.
It’s a food company.
Sure they have a climber as their iconic logo, but outdoorsmen/ women and athletes are just one segment of their consumer market. So, of course they evaluate risk of certain athletes differently.
As for the 5 dropped athletes, they’ll be fine. They are all also great people who make good ambassadors and will likely find a new bar/ food brand with a higher risk tolerance to sponsor them.
Highly intelligent and objective perspective.
There’s a lot of fine calculation and decision making that goes into the highest levels of risky sport. For Clif Bar to decide that it doesn’t want to unduly affect those decisions by adding a financial incentive into the equation is, I think, pretty commendable, even if the way they implemented that decision wasn’t exactly the best.
This article is totally on point, and I agree completely. I also hope that many in the climbing community recognize that Clif has substantial business beyond outdoor athletes. 25% of the kids in my childrens’ kindergarten classes are bringing kids Z bars for snack. Their parents know nothing about climbing, and this news cycle about dropping athletes will go totally unnoticed by that segment of consumers. It simply seems to me that if, one day, Alex Honnold died at the floor of El Cap, someone at Clif would have felt bad that they made money from his risk. Good for them. I, for one at least, will one of the few (maybe) avid rock climbers that is loading up on kids Z bars when i go grocery shopping next weekend.
This is one of the primary reasons I believe Clif could “afford” to act as it did. The company’s marketplace has expanded significantly and it no longer needs to rely on the grass-roots, hard-core, and gritty corners of its consumer base. The climber on the label, to most buyers, is simply a way to connect the name to a visual of some kind, not an actual connection to the outdoor world.
I have no intimate knowledge on the subject, but I doubt Clif just upped and dropped them without so much as a warning or formal meeting. I could be wrong, of course. Perhaps the public backlash has stemmed more from the way we, the non-sponsored, found out about it.
I think it was a smart business move, and in today’s absurdly litigious culture, I fear it will only be a matter of time before Red Bull faces a lawsuit from the family of a once-sponsored athlete. Granted, its can of cash is probably much taller and wider than most who pay such athletes.
Thankfully, all these great athletes are still anxious to provide us with such great theatre. And maybe I can stop telling people that just because I climb does not mean I’m going to scale Half-Dome sans protection.
Great piece, brings a lot of the different factors into it. I’ve pretty much felt the same way, and was heartened to read Alex Honnold’s comments and perspective, elsewhere and here.
I work in the communications/PR field and this was a seriously bungled mess. Just awful, total case-study waiting to happen here. It could’ve been so much better, and possibly even turned into a useful discussion about risk management and how risk tolerance factors into that decision matrix.
Thanks for the post.
Good essay but one thing I find peculiar is nobody actually talks about the amount of money that is supposed to be at stake.
http://www.mountainsandwater.com/2014/11/clif-hanger-raising-bar-on-sponsorship.html
Well, in my case, it’s because I don’t know what’s at stake financially. I don’t know what Alex, Steph, Dean, or any of those guys are making, nor do I feel it’s all that relevant the points I’m making. It wouldn’t be surprising if lawyers were involved in the Clif discussions, but plenty of athletes have died in the field without triggering liability issues for their sponsors. And I do know of some companies in that situation that have very quietly ensured their survivors need not worry about finances, not because it was contractual but because they felt it the right thing to do.
Thanks for the constructive post here.
I also appreciate your comment, “…the outdoor culture worships risk-taking heroes and conversely dismisses anything less than all-out as illegitimate.”
Or at least second rate.
I know I’m not the only one who feels this also; an unattainable athlete standard that generates feelings or perspectives of ‘not legit enough’. For the vast majority of us who must juggle the myriad responsibilities of daily life with pursuing a life outdoors it’s easy to confuse corporate standards with personal choice and satisfaction.
The comparison to backcountry skiing is quite right and actual. Through the past years, we witnessed with great sadness the deaths of friends and athletes like CR Johnson, Shane McConkey and others. These accidents raised questions in the ski medias as to when will extreme be too extreme, and many opinions fired at the never ending pursue of limits-pushing, or so-called progression.
Opposing voices now rise to fire at Clif for their decision, accusing them of applying force against the progression of the sport of climbing.
Progression, or innovation, does not define risk as the ultimate goal, but rather as an agent acting in that pursue, an inevitable part of any creative process. I think this is a message we ought to share as an industry. Clif took a step in this direction, and still have the potential to be a major agent for innovation within the sports of climbing.
We all agree that Clif poorly executed this transition, but seeing this as the main event is missing the point. Potter’s and Honnold’s reaction differ from one another in that fashion.
“Now that things are booming again …” You might want to rethink that statement: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/opinion/inequality-unbelievably-gets-worse.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
“This is the strongest six-month interval we’ve had in 10 years.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/business/economy/us-economy-q3-2014-gdp.html?_r=0
Did you read the entirety of the article you linked? It reiterates how the upswing isn’t benefitting most people.
Well thought-out piece, and I appreciate the distinction you’ve made between Clif change in philosophy (or at least better clarification of an existing one) vs how it was implement.
As an aging outdoors enthusiast who has had to confront their own priorities around risk in the past few years, I’m genuinely glad that a major company with a voice in the industry has added their own opinion to the ongoing conversation of “risk” that seems to be increasingly at the forefront. The strategy was solid…the tactics not to much.
What I’d be genuinely interested in is how much of this was driven by Clif’s founder and owner, Gary Erickson. He strikes me as a deeply moral and ethical individual; based solely on his gut instinct he walked away from a deal to sell Clif back in 2000 for something like $120 million (it was much smaller then, clearly). A major decision like this usually has to come from the top.
Having been deeply involved in the ‘action sports’ industry for more than a decade I can honestly say I can see myself making a similar decision. At some point the risk taken on by the young talent reaches a threshold that can be very unfomfortable to live with.
You may not like how Clif did it but ask yourself how you would feel when Johnny Rad goes home in a box trying uphold his end of the bargain.
How would you feel when you are they guy saying ‘ here is your ten grand and stack of t shirts….the pallet of snacks will ship tuesday….your first edit needs to drop by the end of the month.’
I applaud someone at Clif for being honest.
CLIF = total hypocrisy…
They sponsored The Sufferfest which was a soloing epic of every 14er in California… As mentioned in this article… They are still reaping the benefits from Valley Uprising. Also, as Honnold mentioned, they sponsored these athletes knowing full well what they do. Insofar as setting a precedent… I don’t see it that way. Companies sponsor these athletes the same as CLIF did – when they are in their prime doing what they do. In the last paragraph the correlations between drawing a line is a bit much. I agree that companies within this industry should give great thought to who they sponsor while weighing in on risk though that should take place BEFORE the sponsoring of said athlete(s).
CLIF knew who these athletes were, they knew they were going to rise, and they knew attention would be garnered. Companies within this industry make business decisions and live with them. The approach CLIF took was cowardly and without thought… not calculated at all in my opinion.
They got their money and split.
Well written article!
Good writing, nice comments. I dislike the whole idea of a ‘theatre’ when looking at outdoor athletes and their achievements. Seems to clash somehow with the intrinsic motivation needed in extreme outdoor sports. Naive? Different scene in Europe?
Great writing Steve, once again…
Just another perspective on the topic. Clif’s decision, mostly considered as an “umbrella” type of decision, made by cowards (yes I read that), can be considered as very courageous. Why? Simply because when you do this, you know that the almost entire climbing community is going to criticize you, give you hell, sometimes insult you.
I am not praising here Clif for their statement, or on the opposite side of things Red Bull, but these decisions, on one side or the other of the chessboard come to where you consider your responsibily lies.
These answers belong to the companies and to the athletes. When they are aligned, this is fine, when they begin to diverge, the “partnership” must stop.
How many athletes who are carrying the values of the great outdoors ask themselves the question of how much those values are embraced by their sponsors? There always are two parts in an agreement… And those two must be equally responsible and aware.
I think that this story, damageable for both parties, Clif and Alex, Dean, Steph and the others can also be considered as a story about the emergence of responsible business.
Then there is the how you do it, and here, there is just one acceptable path:
Transparency and Respect.