Michael Spencer of EGO Sports Management; Simon Dumont, Mike Nick of Orage
Who says? Well, that phrase did get uttered a time or two at last weekend’s freeski industry marketing meeting, Carte Blanche at IF3 in Montreal, but after almost a week’s worth of the International Freeski Film Festival’s screenings, parties and discussions, you gotta wonder if the bastard child reputation is fading. Origin organized and lead the Festival’s Sunday wrap-up event focused on marketing the freeski industry, to a jam-packed room of ski brand marketers, athletes, filmmakers and media. Discussions centered around two panel discussions featuring an impressive line up of speakers including freeskiing phenom Simon Dumont, freeskiing’s godfather Mike Douglas, athlete agent Michael Spencer from EGO Sports Management, Mike Nick, Director of Marketing from Orage, Scott Jewett, Director of Marketing at Red Bull and Martin Giroux, the Sales and Marketing Director for Mont Saint-Sauveur International. Panelists discussed the role of athletes in marketing the sport, the role of brands and retailers in both creating and responding to consumer demand, ideas for growing participation and overcoming barriers to entry into the sport, trends in the business, and the lack of a cohesive organization that would bring all segments of freeskiing together. The response was a somewhat surprising (considering everyone had been at the Newschoolers.com party the night/morning before) and super-engaged discussion and Q&A period involving the audience.
Several key take-aways came from the session that focused on improving the health of the industry, including:
- athletes play, or as Simon Dumont pointed out, have the potential to play the lead in defining the direction of freeskiing—and not just in the realm of progression, but in all aspects from growing the sport, to defining comps to contributing to demand for freeski equipment and apparel.
- the industry, and its lack of cohesion, is creating a barrier for growth of the sport
- collaboration and communication between sponsors, athletes and media is critical to communicating freeski’s message to the public
- “core” is a term that should be used to define our passion for the sport, not to intimidate others from joining in
- much of freeskiing’s marketing needs to be measured not by its ROI, but by its ROO — return on objectives. The problem is that very few marketers in the sport are taking the time to identify and communicate their objectives, especially to their athletes. Same can be said for athletes really, and the message to them from both Simon and his agent Michael is, “get to know your sponsors. Talk to them. Work with them.”
- freeskiing has the potential to re-ignite the sport of skiing. As a group, we have a responsibility to come together to do what we can to make this a reality.
- new and innovative marketing strategies need to be applied if growing the sport is our goal. Advertising in ski mags keeps the core engaged, but does little to encourage new participation. Athlete outreach, learn-to programs, urban events, and amateur comps all provide opportunities to preach beyond the converted.
- community—both on-line and off-line—play a huge role in developing and maintaining the sport
And while the discussions created some lively debate, the prevailing message and rallying cry for the day appeared to be, “Rise up freeskiers. Unite. Stand proud. Together we will shed our bastard status!”
Great conversation! I think we all need to really realize the impact that this movement is having on the entire wintersport market. Snowboarding business is hemoraging. Snowboarder numbers have plateaued and show significant signs of decrease. Just as snowboarding took skiier numbers away in the 90’s, skiing is now taking away potential snowboarder numbers. Skiing has become cool again for young kids.
So a few points to take from this:
- Ski brands need to recognize this potential, and step up to support it and build the right products for it. Skiing is cool, but many ski brands are not cool….now.
- Rather than stealing numbers from snowboarding and vice versa, the industry MUST look outside the existing clan of participants and invite new blood into the mix.
- For future conferences like this, it is vital that the old guard (the old fat guy’s running some of the companies, tradeshow organizations, and other industry organizations) attend. Otherwise, we are just preaching to the choir.
Bring on the Snow. Never Stop Exploring.
Corey
Unfortunately, skiing is battling back from years of sleeping when it comes to marketing towards the youth. Outside of Dew/X events, most of the coverage on TV still seems to be race focused.
When snowboarding came up, the industry fought for parks and terrain in line with the freestyle leanings that were popular with riders. Skiing could have done the same thing.
My personal opinion is it’s going to take more marketing to push skiing’s heroes to the forefront. Skiing has their own Shaun White’s and Louie Vito’s, but if you don’t push them out, it’ll hard to get noticed among the clutter.
Agreed. The good news is that the meeting room in the Montreal Hilton on Sunday was anything but sleepy!
Here’s a little excerpt of an interview with Kenny Gart, of Specialty Sports Venture (largest chain of specialty ski shops in US). Found on Transworld Business.
How did Ski Rex go on the snowboard front as far as sales?
Ken Gart: As a prelude, because we’re partners with a public company, and they’re totally paranoid about any disclosure of untrue information, I’ll give you some general trends, but I have to be pretty vague. Generally, we’re pleased. Some stores were up, and some stores were down. The snowboard category is definitely more of a challenge than ski. Some of our earlier sales saw some big decreases in snowboard that we didn’t see in ski.
Are you talking last year?
No, I’m talking within the last thirty days. We did a sale in Telluride before Ski Rex. We did a sale in Crested Butte before Ski Rex, so leading up to Labor Day, and snowboard was way down. Ski Rex wasn’t that bad, it was close, but it was still off significantly more than alpine, which I think, I actually talked to the Burton guys, and I think that there’s this whole culture that’s morphing into twin tips and big mountain, a lot of different kind of skis for the younger demographic, and not just snowboarding. They might still be buying snowboard clothing, and they might still be snowboarding, but they’re also buying twin tip [skis]. There’s a cultural shift going on.
Sounds like a tipping point.
I won’t predict when the tipping point will be, if there will be a clear one at all, but I think the multi-activity rider is going to be an increasing trend. Look at Nike 6.0 and how they embrace more than one activity with the younger generation.
And personally, I know some people that both ski/snowboard or skate/BMX depending on their mood.
Right now for the first time the guys in half pipe 10 guys that are viewable on tv and if big air or slopestyle incorporates there own stuff off axis dubs that jon olsson created along with double fronts switch double fronts and freestyle aerials complete inverts it will explode but aerialist and freeskiers have to work together to make this happen they have to diversify jumps freestyle aerialist s too many triple backs with 3 to 5 twists need one of those along with a 1080 1260 version along with an off axis double makes it more tv friendly mixes it up and then the guys need to bring in outside skiers remember people when the battle of superstars has happend jonny mosely took 2nd 4 times jeremy bloom won it bodie miller won it and herman maier won it so the athletes are the top athletes in world they just need to market and sell the sports presently inverted aerials is too boring by itself and slopestyle is too boring unless the guys are motivated by judges to mix it up from 1260s to fronts backs switch stuff and off axis dubs