Around this time of the year I have a tradition to get myself prepared for the upcoming snowboard season. It starts with digging my snowboard out of a pile of assorted sports equipment in the garage. Always a daunting task because it is constantly at the very bottom. Then dusting it off, prepping it to be waxed, and making sure I have plenty of ice-cold Pabst at hand. I'll throw my goggles on for good measure, turn the iron on, grab a nice fresh stick of deliciously scented wax, pop in one my favorite snowboard videos, and wax away.
Lucky for me I grew up by a well renown ski resort and only had to drive 5 minutes to get to there. Living in San Diego is a completely different story with the closest decent mountain being 6 hours away. I never had to plan out a ski vacation ahead of time, it was more or less looking outside my bedroom window in the morning to see how much it had snowed the night before. For the average consumer, deciding the morning before or even a week before is not an option. Or is it? With the economy in shambles and an unclear future, consumers are finding it unrealistic to book a ski vacation 4 to 6 months in advance. Making reservations for 1 to 2 weeks in advance is seemingly becoming the norm. At least for Vail Resorts.
After watching a interesting clip featuring the CEO of Vail Resorts, Rob Katz, he explained how they have completely changed their marketing efforts for this upcoming season. By focusing on Social Media and advertising with real-time messages as opposed to committing to print ads 4 to 6 months in advance or long-lead traditional advertising. Attracting consumers with weekly real-time messages and being able to "accelerate the consumer decision cycle" is proving to be the new route. Attracting consumers with videos on social sites of skiers/boarders jumping off cliffs, powder shooting everywhere, or as some put it "ski porn" versus traditional means is allowing Vail to adapt to the economic conditions at hand.
I am really not looking forward to the 6 hour drive, but after watching online videos of snowboarders hucking themselves off of cliffs into 4' deep powder, I feel myself getting more and more eager to go shred.
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