Kent Memorial Library to Host Adventure Marketing Book Talk

Author Jeff Blumenfeld will be speaking at on Wednesday about his experiences matching explorers with corporate sponsors, in a field known as adventure marketing.

Blumenfeld wrote the book You Want to Go Where? How to Get Someone to Pay For the Trip of Your Dreams, which takes the reader behind the scenes of some great explorations while helping them to figure out how to plan and fund their own.

Coupled with talks about expeditions sponsored by corporations, Blumenfeld plans to show pictures of the expeditions and offer advice to people who seek their own expeditions.

Blumenfeld said he formed his company in 1980, when he started
consulting with companies that have outdoor gear.

Blumenfeld said he really got into the industry when he worked with Du Pont to sponsor an expedition to the North Pole led by Will Steger. Du Pont sponsored the 1986 Steger International Polar Expedition and the 1990 Trans-Antarctic Expedition with the help of Blumenfeld.

 "I’ve worked on many projects since then and in 1994 I started a newsletter called Expedition News," Blumenfeld said. "It really summarizes what I have come across. It’s been published monthly, starting with fax but now via email."

Blumenfeld said the talk at the library will be about a number of projects he has worked on in the past, including one involving a man who wanted to hit a golf ball across Mongolia and another about Barbara Hillary, now 80 years old, the first African-American woman to reach both the North and South Poles.

The talk will include who decriptions of who these explorers are, what they have done and what the average person can do if they have the right idea.

"I am going to give people advice on how to get funding for their project, but only if [the projects] are bigger than they are," Blumenfeld said, noting that he won’t be giving people advice on how to get a free vacation.

Among his clients are Lands End, Du Pont, Timberland, State Street Bank, The Coleman Company, 3M and Brother, makers of the P-Touch Labeler.

Blumenfeld said Brother claimed to have a new label that didn’t fade in the sun and is resistant to water, so he helped organize tests on the labels in extreme conditions.

While Blumenfeld represents companies who sometimes want explorers to test their product in extreme places, he often hears from people who have ideas for their own trips.

Aside from running a public relations company specializing in adventure marketing, he remains the publisher and editor of Expedition News.

More information on Jeff Blumenfeld and his work can be found at Expedition News.