BOULDER, Colo. (BRAIN) — Active Interest Media, publisher of Backpacker, SKI, Skiing, Climbing and a host of other outdoor consumer magazines, has acquired the Outdoor Guide, a direct mail service, from Catalyst Communication. Terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed.
The Outdoor Guide is a custom catalog that promotes the products and services of ski and outdoor retailers and its supplier brands. Catalyst had produced the Outdoor Guide for more than three decades.
AIM is one of the largest enthusiast media companies with titles that include Yoga Journal, Vegetarian Times, American Cowboy, Log Home Living, and others. The company reaches more than 40 million people through its five divisions — the Equine Network, Home Group, Healthy Living Group, Marine Group and Outdoor Group — each of which also runs consumer and trade events.
AIM’s Outdoor Group expands its trade platform with the purchase. The company’s other trade titles include SNEWS, as well as the license for the Outdoor Retailer Show Daily and Snow Show Daily.
“We believe in supporting and growing the retailers who serve our consumer markets,” said Kent Ebersole, vice president and general manager of AIM’s Outdoor Group. “Outdoor Guide is a proven service delivering customers to our retailer partners through beautiful direct marketing pieces.”
Catalyst Communication retains its Cycling Guide. And the company says its newest project, BikeLife Cities, a print and digital magazine that markets cycling products and infrastructure in cities nationwide, is growing.
“This is a great outcome for Catalyst, for me, our employees, our investors and our outdoor industry clients,” said Lynn Guissinger, president of Catalyst, a company her late husband, Leslie Bohm, founded to help small businesses in the bike, outdoor, ski, fitness, audio/video and run industries market themselves. “The Outdoor Guide is growing, as a number of the nation’s leading independent outdoor retailers realize it helps them sell more.”