I did a survey. Nothing industry-wide, mind you, but I did take care (and appreciate the help of a few friends) to get it in front of normal folk so we didn’t have views of crazy marketers…like us.

After a quick overview of what EpicMix is, there were three questions.

1. Do you ski or snowboard?
2. What do you think about the idea of knowing your stats from your day/season of skiing, earning pins for skiing accomplishments, and sharing this with friends? A) Love it, B) Doesn’t do much for me, C) Hate it.
3. Why?

I’m going to lead out with the whys, but before I do, you should probably know that of those three options on question 2, one of them was never chosen by any of the respondents.

The Whys
Here’s a summary of the why’s I received:

“Like to know the stats for my day, but the pins and such don’t do much for me. ”

“It’s fun to know what you accomplished for the day. Id love to see instant notifications for ON mountain deals/happy hours only for epic mix holders. ”

“I ride because I enjoy sliding down the hill. Stats and pins and accomplishments make me feel like I’m competing in some non-existent competition. If people enjoy it then power to them. It’s easy enough for me to ignore. ”

“It’s fun! I look at it maybe two or three times during the season. It’s neat to see the vertical feet in a day. ”

“Good to know vertical feet. Can track what lifts you rode. Compare different days, seasons, etc. EpicMix pros: -tracking number of days at each resort, seeing vertical, seeing approximately where I skied (ex: rode Orient Express at Vail seven times would remind me that there was crazy good snow in the back bowls on some given day) -pictures; I never buy them, but they are still fun -in-app trail maps -the RFID means I don’t have to think about it before, during, or after (unlike Strava or a Garmin) EpicMix cons: -I don’t share my stats at all, so that’s just noise. I don’t enjoy seeing others’ stats either, though I do like pictures.

“The best part about EpicMix is that it’s automatic – I don’t have to do anything special, remember to start an app, etc. Now and again I find it fun to track my vertical and number of days, but I ski more for the enjoyment of the sport and to spend time with friends and family than to accomplish a certain amount of vertical feet. ”

“I love having something keep track of where I’ve been on the mountains. If I am talking to someone in July about great skiing in Beaver Creek, I want to look back and show off where I’ve been. I think EpicMix could improve more on this with photos from a certain run or descriptions of how that day went. ”

“I don’t ski enough and don’t think I’d really follow my “accomplishments”

“Love being interactive! Can tell where my friends are skiing that day to tell what is good. Just fun! I just like to ski, the stats don’t matter much to me. ”

“I just like skiing!”

“I like the free pics and vert”

“I like the idea of knowing my stats, that’d be cool. The sharing part isn’t a big deal to me.”

“It would be interesting to know my skiing stats, especially if it could track my speed, but it would not be worth spending very much money on.”

“I think the idea of tracking stats is cool…but just getting pins for skiing vertical feet doesn’t sound super awesome. I think that a better idea is rewarding customer loyalty of skiing so many vertical feet with discounted lift tickets or swag.”

“The only think that is nice is the stats, I wouldn’t use the other two functions.”

“It is just one more way to remember the day as well as gauge how you are progressing.”

So, what option was never chosen? “Hate it.”

It was exactly half and half (50% Loved it, 50% said it “Didn’t do much for me.”). But nobody hated it.

Interesting
That to me is fascinating. As much as some people think skiing is enough and doesn’t need a tech add-on, very few people flat out hate it. They are either indifferent or they love it.

While I have no problem with marketing that pisses a few people off (in fact, I think more marketing should do just that), when considering an investment like this, it’s encouraging to me that so few people fall on the “hate” side of the fence.

What We Learn
The pins don’t seem to do much for most skiers.

The sharing, about the same.

But the stats, that’s a part that’s almost universally intriguing. Stats seem to be the core of what skiers like about the EpicMix concept.

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.