The question posed in the title of this post is a sincere one. I’m not totally sure who it should be, but I keep seeing campaigns that I’d love to see more of.

The pattern behind these campaigns goes something like this:

• Some large, well-known consumer brand
• Their product has some tangential relevance to skiing
• So they run a campaign highlighting this use case

We can think of a few examples off the top of our heads, but traditionally car makers – knowing that skiers favor an SUV or truck with 4-wheel drive – are the ones that have been able to connect those dots and then execute effectively in the past.

Two More…of Many?
But today I want to share two more that, within a few days of one another, arrived in my inbox.

Let’s start with the one from Delta that uses some dynamic content based on the airport I typically depart from to suggest routes and rates to ski resorts across the country.

The other is more generic but carries a similar message as the first.

Each of these was likely targeted to some degree based on what they knew about folks in their database, but it’s safe to say that even with really good targeting these sorts of campaigns are going to reach not just active skiers, but potential skiers and/or lapsed skiers as well.

In other words, despite being a little more revenue-focused instead of branding, both of these are really good at getting lots and lots of people thinking about skiing.

The Question
Which leads me to a question.

If there’s value to the brand in doing these sorts of campaigns, how do we get more brands to do them?

Travel-related brands like Audi and Subaru and Delta and Frontier are already connecting the dots between their product and a ski-related use case, but what about brands like:

• Generic travel sites and OTAs skiers use to book vacations (AirBnB, Expedia, etc.)
• Gyms where skiers prep for ski season (Planet Fitness, Golds, etc.)
• Coffee shops and restaurants where skiers fuel up on their way to the slopes (Dunkin’, McDonalds, etc.)
• Device manufacturers that skiers use to take photos and track runs (Apple, Google, etc.)

That list could go on and on. Circle in where skiing could show up in pop culture and the list quickly triples. But to return to my initial pattern:

• Some large, well-known consumer brand
• Their product has some tangential relevance to skiing
• So they run a campaign highlighting this use case

This could be applied at hundreds if not thousands of brands, but they likely either, a) haven’t yet seen skiers as an audience they could be talking to or, b) not sure how to create a good campaign that speaks to them.

What If…
Assuming that there is no present answer to the question I started with, what if we (either NSAA or a new, marketing-focused organization) created this role?

A role where you’ve got one extroverted, marketing-savvy person whose job it is to help brands connect those dots. To help marketers see the skiers in their database as an opportunity and then help them craft a killer campaign where skiing is the setting for their product that speaks the language, perhaps provides free b-roll or props or connections, and helps with the nuance we want to convey.

So skiing doesn’t just happen to show up randomly, but starts to show up everywhere…every fall…without fail.

Said another way, if there’s value in big, global brands talking about our sport but only a few are doing so. What if we had a person whose sole purpose was helping as many other brands as possible do the same?

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.