Pitch by Pitch’s Birth Story

From the meaning behind our brand name to why we launched Pitch by Magazine, here is the branding story for anyone curious about what kind of company Pitch by Pitch is.

Words Pyo Youngso

Part 1. What Does Pitch by Pitch Mean?

One of Pitch by Pitch’s founding members is a rock-climbing fanatic. In climbing, a “pitch” is a unit that refers to one section of a route (1 pitch = 10–30 meters). That is where we got the idea when we were choosing a company name. Look up the word in a dictionary, and this is what you find.

pitch
(n) the highness or lowness of a sound or tone; the degree of an activity or emotion; a statement made to persuade; (in baseball) a throw of the ball
(v) to throw; to persuade; to set up (a tent).

The meaning “to persuade” also fit well with our wish to share the value of the kind of travel we pursue. We liked the boldness we felt in “to throw,” too. And it sounds cute, doesn’t it? Just as climbers scale a rock face one pitch at a time, we wanted our company to move forward step by step, and so we became Pitch by Pitch.
Among ourselves, we also shorten it to “PBP” (pronounced pee-bee-pee in Korean). The one hitch is that when we say it to people outside the company, we have to pronounce it letter by letter, very clearly, to be understood. Of course, even then, we can just take it step by step, in the spirit of Pitch by Pitch.

Part 2. The Birth of Pitch by Pitch

A man and a woman had worked as travel content editors for close to 15 years, or more. After working side by side at the same company for a long time, they began to wonder what came next. Given their years of experience and seniority, starting a business seemed a better answer than changing jobs (in a word, there was nowhere in particular they wanted to go, and nobody was hiring them). They were worn out by the endless cycle of business trips, writing, and deadlines, but they still loved travel and the work of being editors.
What we value most about travel is that it is a one-of-a-kind experience that broadens our understanding of other people and the world. To keep enjoying that kind of travel in a good way, for a long time, we have to reduce, even a little, the negative sides of the travel industry: environmental pollution from carbon emissions, damage to the nature and ecosystems of destinations, and superficial, skin-deep travel experiences. That is how we became interested in sustainable travel. “Well then, shall we start talking about sustainable travel, one step at a time?” And before we knew it, here we were.
In January 2020, Pitch by Pitch set out boldly, with the ambitious aim of claiming the blue ocean of Korea’s travel market before anyone else. Less than a month later, COVID-19 arrived…

Part 3. Why Are We So Devoted to Sustainable Travel?

Say you’re a travel magazine editor, and most people will envy you. “What a great job, getting to travel and write about it!” But is there any job in the world that easy? Let me say this clearly, while I have the chance: we are not going on vacation, we are going to work! On a reporting trip, we have to produce story material as planned within a short schedule, so we have almost no mental or physical breathing room, and we often worry constantly that the plan might fall apart. Repeating the cycle of reporting and filing copy by a set deadline is also physically demanding. Even so, the undeniable appeal (or perk) of this job is that you get travel experiences that ordinary travelers rarely encounter. Sometimes you visit destinations that are hard to reach, and you often have the chance to experience local daily life and culture more deeply and to talk with local people. In the English-speaking world, the phrase “authentic travel experience” is widely used. We translate it as ‘jinjeonghan yeohaeng gyeongheom’, and we think a travel magazine editor’s reporting trip comes close to that kind of experience. An authentic travel experience helps broaden our understanding of a destination, including its people, nature, and culture.
How should we travel so that not only our generation but the next can enjoy the good that travel offers? That question led naturally to an interest in sustainable travel. Only when a destination’s culture and nature are well preserved and the people who live there are happy can travelers, too, have an “authentic travel experience”!

Part 4. Why Did We Launch Pitch by Magazine?

The first thing we prepared after founding Pitch by Pitch in January 2020 was the launch of a magazine. We had been wondering where to begin in making a brand-new brand known, and this was the decision we reached. At the time, awareness of sustainable travel in Korea’s domestic travel market was almost nonexistent (compared with overseas), and building a system to discover, promote, and sell sustainable travel products was going to take time. In the meantime, we figured we should publish a magazine and start by introducing the brand and sustainable travel. It was also the field we felt most confident in, having made magazines and travel content for nearly 15 years.
So what kind of travel magazine did we want to make? The two founding members were largely of one mind on this question: “Something new, not what we’ve been doing all along!” So besides feature stories on reporting trips to destinations, we decided to make a magazine that interprets travel in many different ways, from interviews and columns to photographs, poems, illustrations, travel writing, and even travel fiction-essays that move between fact and fiction. To sound a little cool, we also gave it the label “commentary magazine.”

Pitch by Magazine, which began as a branding effort, is already in its fourth year! After four redesigns, we have published up to Issue 13. We have collaborated with many wonderful writers, photographers, and brands, met all kinds of people, and kept traveling in fresh ways. Taking this opportunity, thank you to everyone who has shown Pitch by Magazine such generous affection!! We don’t know how long it will last, but please join us on Pitch by Magazine’s journey ahead.💚

Part 5. Ever Heard of ‘Pitch by Edition’?

We had launched the magazine and opened a website for online content and product sales, but the COVID-19 pandemic showed no sign of ending. (Considering that the mask mandate inside university hospitals was lifted only on May 1 this year, ushering in a fully endemic phase, that is hardly surprising.) Still, we couldn’t just sit idle because travel packages were hard to sell. So we started ‘Pitch by Edition.’ The idea was to sell works by the many creators featured in “Pitch by Magazine” as limited editions exclusive to PBP. It fit our brand philosophy of building a sustainable community with suppliers and pursuing growth together with the travel market. We also thought it would let us test our original plan to set ourselves apart from ordinary OTAs by connecting travel product sales with content. And we had a rather big ambition: setting 30 percent of each sale price aside as creator royalties, so that we could promote and support the artists and their work.

Pitch by Edition, born this way, began selling in the spring of 2020 and collaborated with ten artists in total (Yoon Jeongvin, Park Shinwoo, Kim Yoonkyung, Lee Yujin, Jung Sooim, Jang Seungho, Cho Jiyeong, Shin Gyucheol, Kim Joowon, and Ahn Soohyang). We sold only ten pieces for each combination of artwork size and frame, and we produced a certificate of authenticity that includes the artist’s handwritten signature and the work’s edition number. We also built a system linking the magazine’s online article about each work to that work’s sales page.

Part 6. The Teammates of Pitch by Pitch

Is it about time we talked about our secret agents? PBP currently has five teammates in total! If you subscribe to Pitch by Letter, you may already know them by their nicknames.
Grumpy Editor H is the head of Pitch by Pitch. Agonizing over the company’s vision and identity, H often loses sleep. With such a small company, there is plenty to handle and plenty to worry about as CEO, so there’s hardly any time to actually be grumpy. Indifferent Editor P (that’s me) is in charge of keeping the office tidy. Cleaning and organizing would be more accurate. In fact, I’m pretty indifferent about most issues.
As for Overly Immersed Editor JM, the name says it all! You may have noticed that JM loses his heart to nearly every interviewee and every place we cover. Every year, he takes up a new sport at the start of the year, and I wonder which event he’ll fall for once the Paris Olympics begin. Then again, this is exactly Editor JM’s greatest strength. It means he is curious and open-minded.
M, our team’s one and only (and always itching to leave) Travel Manager, looks calm on the outside but has an active side that isn’t afraid of new attempts and challenges. I’d bet M has had the most varied experiences of any PBP member (competing in a fitness contest, backpacking alone through South America, and joining plenty of new gatherings and classes!). That makes M perfect for discovering and planning sustainable travel products.
Though they have never appeared in our newsletter, we have two more special agents: Editor N, who handles PBP’s major client projects, and Intern S, who recently joined and runs PBP’s online channels! Thanks to them, PBP’s day goes smoothly once again today.