This past weekend, marketers converged on Whistler for the second annual PowWow. This invitation-only mountain sport marketing summit that Origin co-presents during the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival provided a unique opportunity for industry leaders to come together to discuss marketing trends and challenges. The day-long symposium combined with evening outings to some of the Festival’s hottest events, made for a great couple of days. We’re so psyched to be a part of it and hope that it will continue to grow and draw an increasingly high caliber of attendees from within the marketing ranks of mountain sports.
Headlining the symposium was internationally renowned trend hunter and brand strategist Josh Spear. Josh has appeared in Time magazine, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune, spent time with Fortune 500 CEO’s and execs at Richard Branson’s Necker Island and spoken at Google’s Zeitgeist conference, the World Economic Forum, and the Internet Advertising Bureau Conference.
As the ultimate cool-hunter—traveling the globe, tracking and reporting on his website (joshspear.com) everything that is hip and trendy—Josh treated the group to a presentation on on-line trends and explored new marketing approaches for brands wanting to reach out to today’s “born digital” audiences. See our post below with a recap of Josh’s presentation and recommended links.
Josh’s presentation was followed by a panel discussion entitled “Branding in Snow Sports: How to stay plugged in to a changing marketplace” featuring Whistler Blackcomb’s president and COO Dave Brownlie, Spy Optics VP of Marketing Fran Richards, North Face Canada Marketing Manager Corey Stecker, and the Public Works partner Mike Arzt.
An afternoon presentation from Origin partner and creative director Danielle Kristmanson lead attendees through a 12 step program for introducing social media into the marketing mix.
The social media strategy presentation was followed by a case study of athlete-focused social marketing by Shanti Sosienski from SOS Communications.
The day was wrapped up with a second panel discussion entitled, “Making the Move to 2.0: Experiences from the real world.” featuring Mike Douglas of Salomon Freeski TV, Michelle Leroux, Media Relations Manager at Whistler Blackcomb, Molly Hawkins, Marketing Manager at EvoGear, and Jon Cartwright, General Manager of Westbeach.
If you are a mountain sport marketer interested in attending next year’s event, contact us at info@origindesign.ca.
