Then → Now · 2026
The example the post picked outlived the post. REI's "one-off" Black Friday closure became permanent and reached its 10th year in 2025.
What it said (2017) ↓
Founders pitch "internal-external" ("Hey Huffington Post, this is my product"); "9 times out of 10" the pitch gets binned.
A story needs four things: audience, conflict and intrigue, a clear solution, and a set of assets.
What happened (2026) ↓
REI made #OptOutside permanent in 2022 and closed all 195 stores again on Black Friday 2025, its 10th year. REI newsroom, 2022 · REI newsroom, 10 years
The $600bn figure was wrong when it was written. Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2015 together brought in about $12bn in store sales (ShopperTrak via CNBC); roughly $630bn was NRF's forecast for the whole November–December season.
Verdict · Held up: 7 / 10 · Full 2026 update
- A media pitch needs a story with an audience, conflict and intrigue, a clear solution and assets.Still valid evergreen
- REI's #OptOutside, closing stores on Black Friday and paying staff to go outdoors, showed how to tell a story.Came true the campaign became permanent
- Consumers spent more than $600 billion on Black Friday in 2015.Outdated in fact wrong at publication
- There are five PR people for every one journalist.Came true got worse (more than 6:1)
Original post · 4 August 2017
I often chat with sharp, talented, and passionate entrepreneurs who have enough moxie and street-smarts to take over the world, but they lack one serious skill – the art of telling a story, a story worth telling. I’ve been pitching media for many years and have partnered with a handful of savvy entrepreneurs. When it comes time to launch a new product or share an announcement, they all seem to make the same mistake when pitching media. Let’s take a step back – if you own your own business or you’re on a small startup team, you have the hefty challenge of wearing dozens of hats, sometimes simultaneously, to make your business successful. One morning you could be making sales calls, coding your own website, and attending a mid-morning trade show – all back to back. You’re constantly immersed within the nitty gritty of your business. When it comes time to launch your product or service to the public, the logical next step is to share the news with the media to help share the good news with the world. This is where most entrepreneurs make the most common and biggest mistake when pitching media. Because entrepreneurs live and breathe their brand mission and promise, they approach media with an internal-external approach as opposed to an external-internal approach. They say, “Hey Huffington Post, this is my product and this is why you should like it.” Sounds harmless enough, but I guarantee you, 9 times out of 10; media will read your pitch and immediately trash it. Before you even reach out to the press, I encourage you to take a step back (maybe five) and throw all of your hats into the closet and ask yourself, “Why is my story worth telling?” To know the answer to this question, you’ve got to understand the four key ingredients that make a story successful.- Know Your Audience
- Present Compelling Conflict & Intrigue
- Provide a Clear Solution
- Never Leave Home Without An Arsenal of Assets
Background Deets:
Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year in America. In 2015, the National Retail Federation noted that consumers spent more than $600 billion dollars on this day. While it’s a huge opportunity to generate an enormous amount of revenue, it’s the most overwhelming, cluttered, and product driven holiday of the year. All brands want you to buy their products and they’re all communicating the same story to media, “Tell your readers about our Black Friday deals! They’re the best!” It’s near impossible to stand out.Brand:
REI sells outdoor recreational equipment and gear decided to launch their #OptOutside campaign. It encourages people NOT to shop on the biggest shopping day of the year, but instead “opt out” and enjoy the outdoors. They stand behind this mission so much that they close their own doors and pay their employees to go outside and enjoy.Audience:
Active people who love to be outside. Their target audience has the financial means to purchase their products. They use social media. They’re new junkies and like to stay informed – so they’re watching the news every morning and occasionally reading the newspaper.Conflict & Intrigue:
Black Friday is about MASS CONSUMERISM, it is the biggest shopping day of the year, it’s about who got the best deal. REI, a retail company, is encouraging people to do the opposite – not shop.Solution:
In order to participate in their challenge, they wanted people to go outside - to invest in the outdoors and enjoy nature. They offered Thanksgiving Day leftover lunch boxes for people to take on their hikes. They challenged people to share their experience through the #OptOutside hashtag.Assets:
REI had the story, now they needed the storytelling assets to bring it to life. They designed engaging video content and created a hashtag that generated even MORE third-party consumer content that brought the community together. REI’s CEO was available for interviews and they invited journalists on outdoor trips and excursions to “opt outside with them.” There are five PR people to every one journalist. It’s up to each of us to serve up a story to media that’s not about us, but about a greater cause. You should offer them worthy news that people – their readers will want to know about – something that will resonate with them and that they can get behind! So before you pitch the next journalist, ask yourself, “Am I sharing a story worth telling?”2026 update
What happened after this was written
Claims then:
- Founders pitch "internal-external" ("Hey Huffington Post, this is my product"); "9 times out of 10" the pitch gets binned.
- A story needs four things: audience, conflict and intrigue, a clear solution, and a set of assets.
- Case study: REI's #OptOutside, which closes the stores on Black Friday and pays staff to go outdoors.
- "In 2015 … consumers spent more than $600 billion dollars on this day [Black Friday]."
- "There are five PR people to every one journalist."
What happened since:
- REI made #OptOutside permanent in 2022 and closed all 195 stores again on Black Friday 2025, its 10th year. REI newsroom, 2022 · REI newsroom, 10 years
- The $600bn figure was wrong when it was written. Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2015 together brought in about $12bn in store sales (ShopperTrak via CNBC); roughly $630bn was NRF's forecast for the whole November–December season. CNBC, 2015-11-29
- The PR-to-journalist ratio kept widening. Muck Rack put it at nearly 6:1 in 2018 (BLS data), and O'Dwyer's put it at more than 6:1 in 2024. Muck Rack, 2018-09-06 · O'Dwyer's, 2024-06-10
- The Huffington Post became HuffPost in April 2017, before this post went up. In January 2018 it also closed its unpaid contributor platform, the route many founders had used to get in. The Drum, 2017-04-25 · TechCrunch, 2018-01-18
- The core advice still holds. In Muck Rack's 2025 survey, 86% of journalists ignore a pitch that is off-topic, 84% say PR pitches lead to stories, and more than three-quarters use gen-AI in their work. Buchanan PR summary of Muck Rack 2025 · Muck Rack 2024 PDF
Named tools/orgs status:
| Name | Then | Now | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Huffington Post | Example pitch target | Renamed HuffPost (Apr 2017); unpaid contributor platform closed Jan 2018 | The Drum, TechCrunch |
| REI #OptOutside | Campaign launched 2015 | Permanent since 2022; running in 2025 | REI |
| National Retail Federation | Source of the "$600bn" | Active; the figure was misattributed | CNBC |
Verdict: Storytelling advice: Still valid (evergreen). REI example: Came true, since the campaign became permanent. "$600bn on Black Friday": Outdated, and in fact wrong at publication. "5 PR per journalist": Came true and got worse (more than 6:1).
Headline finding: The example the post picked outlived the post. REI's "one-off" Black Friday closure became permanent and reached its 10th year in 2025.
Re-verified 3 November 2026: 4 claims confirmed, 3 corrected, 0 hedged, 0 removed.
Researched 30 September 2026 and re-verified against the sources on 3 November 2026. Sources are linked in each point. Items marked "unverified" could not be established and are not guessed.