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Public Relations Plan Hanna Herrin, Meme Ranken, Rylan Suehisa, Samantha van den Berg Introduction to Public Relations

Planet Granite PDX

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Public Relations Plan

Hanna Herrin, Meme Ranken, Rylan

Suehisa, Samantha van den Berg Introduction to Public Relations

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Table of Contents

1. Background / Situational Analysis 2

2. Publics 4

3. Project Goals 5

4. Strategy 7

5. Opening Event 12

6. Evaluation 13

7. Appendix 15

8. Works Cited 20

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Background / Situational Analysis

The Problem

Planet Granite, a California-based indoor climbing gym with yoga and fitness facilities, is

opening up a brand new location, right here in Portland! Because much of their experience deals

with the culture of the Bay Area, Portland is a brand new market for them, full of challenges and

unknowns. To make matters worse, the competition is fierce. The Circuit, Planet Granite’s key

competitor, has a large part of the market share in the Portland area and their well-known

reputation in the community will only make it more difficult for a “newbie” gym to become a

quick success.

The Opportunity

Planet Granite has a great opportunity to tap into the college student market. Many of the

universities in this area have well-established “outdoor pursuits” programs that tap into

Portland’s plethora of outdoor activities, including rock climbing.

Planet Granite’s inclusive environment, commitment to giving back to the community and their

desire to provide fair pricing to their patrons fits perfectly with the vibe that college students are

interested in experiencing.

Market Overview

The market for fitness gyms has been on a steady incline for the past 10 years, with gym

revenues rising by five billion dollars between 2005 and 2010, according to Market Share

Reporter. People’s interest in attending gyms is on the rise due to an increasing desire for the

American public to take their health into their own hands. Fitness gyms hold 56% of the market

share within the fitness industry, while pilates and yoga studios hold 15%. For our focus of

Portland, Oregon, the market for fitness could not be better. This year, Men’s Fitness ranked

Portland the Fittest City in America, with about 86% of the population getting exercise on a daily

basis. Portland stands apart as a hub of biking, yoga and fitness as far as the eye can see;

however the rain drives the fit Portlanders inside often and they’re always looking for outlets to

exercise their freedom for fitness.

See Appendix for a SWOT analysis of Planet Granite.

Competitor Analysis

Planet Granite faces a fairly competitive landscape as they enter the Portland climbing gym

market. In this section, we look at key competitors, media coverage of Planet Granite Portland’s

impending opening, and the opportunities present to source ideas from our competitors--

competitors who have had success attracting consumers the Portland market.

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Planet Granite’s Key Competitors include the following:

Portland Rock Gym

Portland Rock Gym lives by the philosophy that “there’s nothing like the fitness and fun of rock

climbing at PRG.” Since 1988, PRG’s mission has been to teach indoor rock climbing and to

“celebrate and preserve our local cliffs and boulders outside.” PRG offers instruction for

climbers of all ages and provides a variety of events, including clinics, throughout the year. PRG

differentiates itself as “Oregon’s Largest Climbing Gym,” offers “happy hour deals” and

regularly contributes to a company blog. Private lessons and beginner clinics offer a no-pressure

climbing experience to climbers of all abilities, from beginner to advanced.

Location: Portland

PRG Website: http://www.portlandrockgym.com/

Stoneworks Climbing Gym

Stoneworks Climbing Gym lives by the tagline “Great Climbing, Great People, Since 1993.”

They boast the fact that they have the “best route turn around in the Portland area. Like PRG,

Stoneworks offers bouldering clinics to climbers of all ages and abilities. They share company

news and events through a centralized blog. Stoneworks Climbing Gym doesn’t offer discounts

to their customers, particularly college students, but they do offer special group rates. Their

aesthetically pleasing website sets them apart from the competition.

Location: Beaverton

Stoneworks’ Website: http://belay.com/

The Source Climbing Center

The Source Climbing Center offers a premier climbing experience for both novice and advanced

climbers and everything in between. Although The Source does offer climbing classes like its

competitors do, they differentiate themselves by offering a discount to youth, up to 24 years of

age. The Source are big proponents of giving back to the community through their “Source Gives

Back” program. They have been featured in Portland Monthly, the Vancouver Business Journal

and have hosted the USA Climbing Regional competition at their facilities.

Location: Vancouver, WA

The Source website: http://www.sourceclimbing.com/

The Circuit

The Circuit Bouldering Gym is one of Portland’s most well-known climbing gyms. Similar to

the Portland Rock Gym, The Circuit partners with local vendors to offer “happy hour deals.”

They also offer “First Time Visitors” night, offering a discount for first time climbers every

Saturday night. Like the competition, The Circuit also offers private lessons for beginners. Their

dual gym locations--one in Northeast and another in Southwest--allow the Circuit to reach a

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larger, potential customer base.

The Circuit poses a particular challenge to Planet Granite’s opening, as they will be opening their

third location in the same timeframe as PG’s Portland open. Although this gym will increase

exposure of the Circuit brand, this new gym will be located in Beaverton, rather than downtown

Portland. This will most likely pose no threat to Planet Granite’s opening festivities and will give

PG ample opportunity to focus purely on Portland-based patrons.

Location: Portland

The Circuit website: http://thecircuitgym.com/

Future Insights

Planet Granite’s key competitors have already seen success in attracting the greater PDX market.

Because we are targeting a niche demographic, some of the competitor’s tactics may not be

relevant to our overall strategy but may be of interest moving forward. The following are key

insights that Planet Granite should consider as they move forward in the Portland market.

● Forge community relationship. Planet Granite is widely unknown in the Portland

market. In order to gain brand recognition, PG should partner with local outfitters and

suppliers to host neighborhood events, such as The Circuit does. Doing so will raise

Planet Granite’s visibility in the community and will help to attract more media attention.

● Forge media relationships. After Planet Granite has begun to develop a presence with

the local community, they should see organic relationships beginning to develop with the

local media. Maintaining relationships with local bloggers and community activists will

only help to insure Planet Granite’s long-term viability in the Portland market. The

Circuit and The Source have garnered notable coverage of their facilities which increases

their credibility and reach in the Portland climbing market.

Publics

Our key public is college students in the Portland area, namely those of University of Portland,

Lewis & Clark, Portland State University and Concordia. We hope to reach out to the students in

search of an all-inclusive and fun wellness facility. These students are open-minded, active and

potentially underwhelmed by their school’s facilities. The messages we’d like to communicate

would be how fun and good for you climbing and yoga can be. We want to show them that just

downtown in their city, there is somewhere that offers not only fitness, but yoga, classes,

bouldering and top roping. With highly discounted student rates, Planet Granite is a perfect

hobby to add to your agenda. PG and its opening would be a wonderful place for college students

to come meet student from other colleges.

Past college students, we also hope to target young adults. The young adults we’d likely be

targeting would be those who have been looking for a place like PG, where they can truly “get it

all”. Portland is packed with gyms, yoga studios and climbing gyms, but none of them offer all

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of the above like PG does. These adults would be active, likely working and in their 20’s-30’s.

We’d like to communicate that coming to the opening and joining PG would the new and all-

inclusive experience they’ve been looking for in Portland.

Another interested public would be local climbing/yoga/athletic outfitters. Local shops nearby

the gym will have a great interest in the success of the gym and share in the desire to get more

people climbing, doing yoga and working out there. The news of the opening will be very

important to communicate to them, as they can share it with their customers and steer more

people into further involvement, thereby potentially gaining more customers for themselves.

Goals

The overarching goal of our campaign is to create buzz on Portland college campuses around the

opening of Planet Granite’s new Portland location. To achieve this larger goal, we plan on

accomplishing the following quantified sub-goals:

1. Garner event coverage by at least two student papers from the list of Portland area universities

below:

● University of Portland Beacon

● Portland State Vanguard

● Lewis & Clark Pioneer

As well as event coverage by Willamette Week.

2. Obtain at least two local radio spots on KBOO or OPB

3. Receive at least three write-ups in the following local climbing publications

● Climbing Business Journal

● Oregon Mountain Community Gear blog

● Pdexercise blog

4. Achieve the detailed social media goals outlined below

5. Welcome at least 1,000 college students total on opening day

Through our campaign efforts, we have detailed the revenue-based goals of increasing their

bottom line by 10% and boosting initial sign-ups by 30%.

A Quantified Strategy to Goal-Setting

Our approach to goal-setting was very specific. The goals that we have set are both quantifiable

and in-depth because we have quantified our tactics campaign as well as the campaign results.

In this campaign, we did not simply identify which outlets we wanted to employ. We specified

the strength of our outreach to these different mediums - for instance, we set goals of at least two

radio mentions or three magazine and blog write-ups. What this allows for, is a clear

understanding of the quality that must go into the materials sent out to the different mediums. As

we create our materials, the knowledge that we are for instance, not just targeting local Portland

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radio stations, but our pitch must be so well-written as to catch the eye of at least two stations.

Quantifying in a way holds us accountable to excellence. Following from defining the media

response that we want to achieve, an added benefit is that we know clearly the effort that needs

to be given.

In consequence of our campaign efforts, are the business benefits that we hope to achieve. We

have set goals in that area as well, they being to increase initial sign-ups by 30% and their

bottom line by 10%, as well as have at least 1,000 college students come by on opening day.

The Benefits of a Quantified Strategy

Our quantified goals in public relations strategy coupled with desired financial results for Planet

Granite allow for benchmarks which are quite comprehensive. Of course in setting strategic

goals, we get direct benchmarks to measure success - if we set the goal of having 3,000 Twitter

followers by the gym’s opening, we will know that we have succeeded if we attain that number.

This is evident, but there is more going on when business outcomes are defined as we have done.

We now have a way of investigating the campaign’s overall success on a factor-by-factor level.

Based on the degree of success or failure of our specific media outreach-based goals, we have

the ability to identify which factors contributed to the overall campaign outcome. To illustrate, if

our financial goals were met and opening day attendance was met as well, and we had well over

5,000 followers on the Planet Granite Facebook page but no climbing blog write-ups, we could

hypothesize that social media played a big part in the campaign’s success while blog coverage

did not. Knowing the effect that individual elements had on the overall outcome serves an

educational purpose as we assess and evaluate. We know what worked well and what did not.

Most importantly, we will be aware of where we can make improvements.

Goal Achievement

Our campaign will be accomplished collectively, with individual members responsible for

different aspects of it. Each member will be assigned to craft a pitch for a single media type and

will also be responsible for developing relationships with targeted representatives that we have

specified. Individual success can then be determined based on response and results.

Social Media Goals

Because social media engagement is so integral to our overall strategy for Planet Granite’s

Portland opening, we have identified the following goals to be of importance:

Facebook

The current Planet Granite Facebook page has 4,300 followers and the Portland Planet Granite

page has 796. The goal for these pages are to increase the followers for the general page to 4,600

followers and the Portland page to 1000 followers between now and July. By the time the

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Portland Planet Granite location opens the goal is to increase followers on the general page to

over 5,000 and the Portland page to 2,000. It will also be important to increase follower

engagement so the goal is to get 100 likes per post on the Portland page and 20-50 likes per post

on the general page.

Twitter

The Planet Granite Twitter page has 2,596 followers. By July the goal is to increase the number

of followers to 2,800 and to over 3,000 by the opening of the Portland location. To increase user

engagement the goal is to increase the number of favorites per tweet to 10 favorites.

Instagram

The Planet Granite Instagram account has 1,182 followers. The goal for this account is to

increase the number of followers by July to 1,400 and by the opening to over 1,800. To increase

user engagement the goal is to increase the number of likes per post to 100 or more, we will

know that we have succeeded if we attain that number. This is evident, but there is more going

on when business outcomes are defined as we have done.

We now have a way of investigating the campaign’s overall success on a factor-by-factor level.

Based on the degree of success or failure of our specific media outreach-based goals, we have

the ability to identify which factors contributed to the overall campaign outcome. To illustrate, if

our financial goals were met and opening day attendance was met as well, and we had well over

300 social media followers but no climbing blog write-ups, we could hypothesize that social

media played a big part in the campaign’s success while blog coverage did not. Knowing the

effect that individual elements had on the overall outcome serves an educational purpose as we

assess and evaluate. We know what worked well and what did not. Most importantly, we will be

aware of where we can make improvements.

Strategy

In order to insure the success of this launch, we have decided to implement a tiered, step by step

strategy. The following are the elements of our strategy, in order of implementation: a survey of

your key public, media outreach, employee communication, direct outreach to key publics.

Survey of Key Public

To begin, our public relations strategy will be much more successful if we fully understand

where our key publics consume their information. College students are not only a niche public,

but they also consume news in a much different way than many other publics do.

To adequately understand Planet Granite’s key public, we crafted a simple survey to get a better

picture of how potential, college-aged customers consume their news and their preference in

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relation to climbing gym amenities to preliminarily gauge their reaction to Planet Granite’s

opening. Survey research is a great strategy to implement in this case, as it provides respondents

an opportunity to answer on their own terms, in a more candid, meaningful way.

The survey will be distributed to college students in the area via Planet Granite’s social media

properties. Survey takers will be encouraged to share the survey with their social networks to

increase total participation. Planet Granite will also partner with university outdoors

organizations to spread the survey to potential customers who might also have previous climbing

experience with Planet Granite’s competitors.

See the Appendix for a screenshot of our survey, or click on the following link to be directed to

the survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XMM82FY

We hope to receive at least 50 responses to this survey within 2 weeks of sending it out to

prospective customers. The survey will be sent no later than May 5th to insure adequate time for

review and strategy adjustment.

Media Outreach

After properly identifying the news consumption habits of college students in the Portland area,

we will begin media outreach. Our outreach will run June 2014-July 2014 to ensure that we have

plenty of time to garner media attention prior to the grand opening festivities.

Media coverage on the Portland location has been relatively dismal. The only notable coverage

includes a piece from CoStar Group, announcing Planet Granite’s purchase of the land. Notable

coverage in the local community must be achieved if the grand opening is to be successful.

Placement will also insure that Planet Granite can begin to build a positive reputation in the

community, and become a viable competitor in the Portland climbing market.

Although key media outlets may change based on the results of our survey, we have identified

the following media sources to be of extreme importance in the Portland community. A press

release will be sent to these sources via email, along with a customized pitch to ensure maximum

results. See the Appendix for the press release that will be used in our media outreach.

Local Media

Newspapers

o The Oregonian

o Willamette Week

Magazines

o Climbing Magazine

o Climbing Business Journal

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Radio

o OPB

o KBOO

Blogs

o Oregon Mountain Community Gear

o PDX Exercise

o Portland Rock Climbs

o Evening Sends

University Media

● University of Portland Beacon

● Portland State University Vanguard

● Lewis and Clark Pioneer

Pitch Strategy for Media Outreach

We will employ a slightly different pitch strategy for our two, key media segments: local media

and university media. Different pitch strategies will insure that we reach our public in a way that

is most relevant to them.

Pitch for College Newspapers

Planet Granite is opening their first location in Portland in late 2014. The facility offers

comprehensive climbing, yoga, and fitness areas--you can do it all at Planet Granite! Affordable

fun, student discounts and promotions with local vendors make this gym your NEW favorite

fitness destination! Check out our grand opening festivities for free fitness classes and a chance

to win free swag!

Pitch for Local Media

Planet Granite is opening their first location in Portland in late 2014. The facility offers

comprehensive climbing, yoga, and fitness areas--you can do it all at Planet Granite! The much-

anticipated location will offer bouldering competitions, free fitness classes and facility tours

throughout the opening festivities, which will run August 11-15.

Employee Communications

Although it’s important to target our key publics, we must not forget our employees and the

influence they can have on the local community. Currently hired employees that live in the area

will be great word-of-mouth marketers. We will encourage our employees to spread the word

about this new Planet Granite location via their own social networks, interact with current Planet

Granite PDX social accounts and post information to their personal blogs. Many of these

employees will most likely know the PDX area quite well, and may have climbed in other gyms

(competitors) in the area.

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Our strategy for employee communications is three pronged and will begin immediately to

ensure maximum participation rates and word of mouth spread. Firstly, we will send out a

preliminary e-blast to an employee when they are hire. Secondly we will post about our new

hires on the Planet Granite PDX social sites, to increase their participation and interaction on

social media. Lastly, we will create a bi-monthly, curated newsletter to send to employees to

remind them of word-of-mouth sharing opportunities, and to build excitement and employee

camaraderie around the launch.

Please see a sample of our e-blast in the Appendix.

Direct Outreach to Key Publics

The last step in our tiered strategy is to begin outreach to our key public, college students. As

indicated above, we have identified the following universities to target our outreach to:

● University of Portland

● Portland State University

● Lewis and Clark College

● Concordia University

Official Planet Granite Poster

We have created an official Planet Granite poster that will be displayed around all 5 campuses in

strategic locations. We will also create an electronic version of the poster to send via email to

students at these universities.

Please see the Appendix for the poster we will place around universities in the Portland area.

Partnership with Outdoor Pursuits Programs

In addition to strategic poster placement to publicize the opening of Planet Granite, we will begin

to develop relationships with university outdoor programs or clubs. This will allow Planet

Granite direct access to their target market.

We will use this channel to promote Planet Granite’s opening, alert students of the special

student discount Planet Granite offers, in the hopes of increasing students’ exposure to Planet

Granite Portland.

Ideally, university students who are passionate about climbing will share the news of Planet

Granite’s opening with their peers and their social networks, increasing Planet Granite’s overall

reach in the community.

We will partner with the following university outdoor clubs:

● University of Portland’s Outdoor Pursuits

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● Portland State University’s Outdoor Program

● Lewis and Clark’s College Outdoors Program

● Concordia Student Services

Partnerships with university programs will begin immediately to ensure adequate relationship

building opportunities prior to the opening.

Social Media Strategy

YouTube

Planet Granite has an impressive social media presence not only with the size of their following

but the amount and caliber of their content. Planet Granite currently does not have a YouTube

channel but it is a very important social channel to have a presence on. There were many videos

on their Facebook page that would create great content on YouTube. Creating action packed

climbing videos could get a lot of attention and create great exposure for the gym. There are over

570,000 videos on YouTube already about rock climbing and over 43,000 videos of

competitions. Planet Granite hosts competitions in their facilities and they post videos of it on

Facebook. YouTube would be an easy addition to their social media strategy.

Leading up to Opening Day - Campaign Strategy

Planet Granite has a large social media following. A strategy for the opening is to use Planet

Granite’s social media influence to generate buzz.

Post Pictures/videos of the space as it develops: Pictures will be taken through Instagram and

posted to Facebook as new aspects of the building unfold (i.e., construction, decorations, putting

in the rock grips, etc.). Pictures will then be posted to Twitter separately from Instagram. This is

because then the pictures will remain a part of the Twitter page rather than a link that isn’t saved

with the other pictures.

Post pictures of the merchandise from vendors that will be at the opening: Pictures will be taken

through Instagram and posted on Facebook. Pictures will be posted to Twitter separately from

Instagram. Pictures can be of vendor’s logo, the products, and the vendor at a past events.

Post videos of the staff that will be working at the Portland location: To increase community,

videos and pictures of the Portland staff will be taken for potential customers to get to know the

staff. Headshots will be used to give a profile description of the person including why they love

climbing. Pictures of the staff climbing will be used as promotion of the opening day. Videos of

staff answering rapid-fire questions will bring in a lighthearted side to the company and give the

customers an opportunity to see the personalities of the staff. These videos and pictures will be

taken through Instagram and posted to Facebook. The videos and pictures will be posted to

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Twitter separate from Instagram.

Interview famous climbers that will be at the opening: Since a few influential climbers will be at

the opening, interviewing them prior to the event will not only promote the event but it will also

guarantee the people coming will know and have some background information about these

influential people. These can be videos as well as pictures. These videos and pictures will be

taken with Instagram and posted to Facebook. The videos and pictures will be posted on Twitter

separate from Instagram.

Cover the college-climbing clubs that will be competing at the opening: Interview and videos of

the clubs climbing. Create a rivalry between the schools to get in communities interested and the

climbers excited. Post pictures of the climbing clubs climbing as well as them at the opening

event.

Pre-Opening Giveaway Contest

These prizes will be posted to the social media sites as written below. The winners will be told to

come to the opening event to claim their prize.

Go-pro (two will be given away): Post a video of yourself to the Planet Granite Portland

Facebook page to win a brand new GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition camera! What you need to do

is post a super cool video of you on a climbing adventure. The time limit is two minutes for the

video. Videos must be posted to the Facebook page on June 1st (12:00 AM PST) through the 7th

(11:59 AM PST). Make sure to tag your post with #PlanetGranitePDX and #GoProMe.

Free year membership (five will be given away): Post a picture on Instagram representing how

you feel when you climb, & describe it! Tag @PlanetGranite in your post and use

#PlanetGranitePDX to win a year membership to our PDX location.

Free month membership (twenty will be given away): The 1st 20 people to Tweet at our account

@PlanetGranite will win a month free membership to our new Portland location use

#PlaniteGranitePDX

Climbing essentials package worth $250 (ten will be given away): The first ten people that

retweet this tweet will win a climbing essentials package worth $250! Shoes, chalk, chalk bag,

shirt, pants, and more!

Opening Event

For the opening, we plan to host an event on our first day. We want the opening to involve as

much as the community as possible, as well as give potential customers a taste of what the gym

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is going to be like up and running.

For this event, we plan on hosting small bouldering competitions that event-goers can sign up for

the day of. They won’t be serious competitions, merely quick exhibition rounds to compete for

various prizes, from food from our sponsors to new climbing shoes. The gym itself will be up

and running so people can try out the machines and try out the floor space. There will also be

sample yoga lessons for people to try as they please.

We will offer introductory rates for first time climbing lessons, as well as opening day

registration discounts if they sign up for a membership while at the event. We plan to reach out

to local food carts to park outside of the event, as well as reach out to our sponsors to host stands

there, selling and displaying their food and equipment. There will also be a 20% discount on all

products offered on site, including stands from local vendors like Climb AX, OMC Gear and

Next Adventure.

As social media is involved, we will ask event-goers to take a selfie of themselves at the event,

trying out the climbing walls, equipment, yoga or sponsorship stands, and all selfies will be

entered in a random drawing to win a prize of a free one-year membership. To enter, they must

hashtag this selfie on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #PGtakesPDX. Finally,

we’re going to contact famous climbers, for instance, Chris Sharma, and invite them to attend the

event.

The event itself will be posted on Facebook and the above information as well as other

accumulated information about the opening will be provided in the description.

Evaluation

The benefit of well-defined goals are well defined ways of evaluation which come directly from

those goals. We see our goals as benchmarks in the evaluation process. Just as we have broken

our goals down into categories, our methods of evaluation will be grouped into those same

categories.

Concerning our campaign strategy, success will be judged by answering the following questions:

1. Did we succeed in gaining coverage by at least two college newspapers as well as

Willamette Week?

2. Did we obtain at least two radio spots on either KBOO or OPB?

3. Did we have Planet Granite Portland written about at least twice in climbing

publications?

4. Did we gain the numbers of followers we specified on our social media sites?

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Concerning the business results that stem from our work, success will be judged by answering

the following questions:

1. Did we welcome a total of 1,000 college students to Planet Granite Portland on

opening day?

2. Have we increased their bottom line by 10% and boosted initial sign-ups by 30%?

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Appendix

Planet Granite SWOT

Strengths

● Offer more services than any other

gym in the Portland area.

● Soon to be the largest climbing gym in

Portland.

● Already exceptional at social media.

● Experienced at functioning at multiple

locations.

Weaknesses

● New/unfamiliar to the area.

● Lack of connections with the media.

Opportunities

● Can gain a wide base following.

● First gym in area with full yoga

studios, gym and climbing.

Threats

● Many established competitors in the

Portland market.

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To see the entire survey, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XMM82FY

CoStar Group’s coverage of Planet Granite: http://www.costar.com/News/Article/Planet-Granite-

Purchases-New-Location-in-Portland/149674

Employee E-blast

To: All Employees

Subject: Planet Granite PDX Opening: We Need Your Help

Hello PG Portland employee! We are so happy to have you join our team and we hope you are

excited to join us as we spread the word about our new location. Have something to say? Want to

share your excitement? Check us out on Facebook

(https://www.facebook.com/PlanetGranitePortland) and feel free to share your excitement with

your networks using the hashtag #PGpdx.

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Press Release

Planet Granite Portland

1405 NW 14th Ave, Portland, OR 97209

Contact: Stephanie Ko Pound

24-hour phone: 408-991-9090

Aug. 11, 2014

PLANET GRANITE ANNOUNCES GRAND OPENING OF PORTLAND LOCATION

Portland, Ore.—Planet Granite is pleased to celebrate the opening of its newest location in

northwest Portland. This state-of-the-art 30,500 square foot facility, located between NW 14th

and 15th Ave on NW Pettygrove St., will be the largest of Planet Granite’s four locations. The

grand opening festivities will begin on August 11 at 9:30 a.m. and will end on August 15 at 9

p.m.

The much-anticipated location will offer bouldering competitions, free fitness classes and facility

tours throughout the opening festivities. The Portland location will also offer special introductory

rates to first-time climbers and eligible university students. Attendees will receive a one-time

20% discount on all products offered in the Planet Granite Gear Shop. Attendees will have the

opportunity to take advantage of additional discounts from participating vendors, such as Climb

Axe and OMC Gear.

“We look forward to becoming a part of the already thriving Portland climbing community,”

says Planet Granite owner Micky Lloyd. “We’re focused on providing resources for climbers,

athletes and yogis of all fitness levels to pursue their passions in a collaborative and supportive

environment.”

The Portland location features a custom-built climbing wall assembled by Walltopia, an industry

leader in climbing wall building and design. The three-story climbing, yoga and fitness facility

boasts 60 foot high walls, top out bouldering, yoga studios and complete fitness and cardio areas.

This location includes a variety of innovative training tools for climbers, including a unique,

hydraulically adjustable crack and system board.

To learn more about the activities offered during the grand opening, including bouldering

competitions and free fitness classes, visit Planet Granite’s Facebook page. For more information

and for special grand opening rates, visit Planet Granite’s website or call 408- 991-9090.

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About Planet Granite

Planet Granite Climbing Yoga Fitness is more than just an indoor climbing gym; it is a family of

climbers, athletes and yogis pursuing their passions. With three locations in the San Francisco

Bay Area and a new location opening in Portland, Oregon, Planet Granite provides a quality

experience to athletes of all fitness backgrounds. Planet Granite is a place to work your body,

relax your mind and be amongst friends. Come to try something new—stay because it is your

life.

For media inquiries, contact Stephanie Ko Pound, Marketing and Regional Manager, at

[email protected] or call 408-991-9090.

##

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Works Cited

"Fitness Industry, 2012." Market Share Reporter. Ed. Robert S. Lazich. 2015 ed. Detroit: Gale,

2015. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

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