trailertrash Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 You need to go on the "Redbull Carving Tour" or the "Trogan Carving Tour" whatever.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juha Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 For exposure I believe the best way to go would be a made for TV format that's exciting, interesting, appealing and understandable for the Average Joe. Could be something along the lines of Red Bull Air race which one could say is aerobatics made "simple" for TV and public. An event appealing to large target audience would bring sponsors from outside of snowboarding:biggthump Promoting and creating interest in carving would be a byproduct of a good show:lurk: What elements people think should be in such show? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 You need to go on the "Redbull Carving Tour" or the "Trogan Carving Tour" whatever....i would LOVE for red bull to sponsor us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kieran Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 You need to go on the "Redbull Carving Tour" or the "Trogan Carving Tour" whatever....get sponsorship from henckels or global, maybe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heroshmero Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 +1 on the demo tent road show. One idea that I've had kicking around my head is to do exhibition carving at different mountains along with demo tents and promotion of the sport. The kind of thing I'm talking about is getting a few talented carvers to rip it up right under the lift where they can get good exposure and then follow that up with the promotion at the demo tent. Sort of a Carving All Stars tour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott.Creer Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 my rookie and young mind advice is to find a target market that is not already heavily saturated with "extreme sports" marketing. Red Bull, mt. dew, etc. put huge money into the 13-22 year old male market. That is a market that small business can not compete with. I would suggest focusing on the just out of college, young adult market (like myself age 25-30). Many of my friends have gone from being avid soft boot park snowboarders who would put 100+ days in a season to going only 4-5 times a season. The passion for being in soft boots in the park decreases when you get older and realize that it hurts a lot to slam into a rail. Any ways my long winded explanation comes to a point. In order to find any solution, I would suggest to do what any other company does when it is looking to launch a new product or marketing campaign. Do focus groups and surveys and other methods of research to determine the correct answer for and from the consumer you are targeting. Without research all ideas are really just speculation. My speculation is that the FIS and other organizations needs to make the events more attractive to more people. Freestyle/Park events have: slope style, half pipe, rail jams, big air, quarter pipe, etc. Super G, standard GS and Slalom should all be events. Also, if someone could talk NASTAR into setting snowboard courses at least once a month every where as a policy, that would also make people see the courses more often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 This is also a great idea! Copper has something called En Fuego every Friday night. It's an exhibiton sort of with street parties, music, bonfires, etc. They used to have a big air comp (and they might still have this on special nights) but it would be cool to have lights shining on the mountain and people carving it up doing 360s (on snow) and such. People could be in the crowd handing out flyers "for more info" type of thing. This could be a traveling show as well, doing it during the day too but hyping it up for a night show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trailertrash Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 The problem with a road show is you would have to some how make sure you could have enough equipment to always have stuff for new folks to demo. You don't want to have people who already are in the sport to hog all the gear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seraph Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Hire a professional who knows what they are doing. If you want media attention, then all of the carving industry companies need to pony up together and hire a PR firm to give you some direction and help you get the message out. I don't know if there are any members on the forum that do PR for a living, but I would at least tap them for advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 The problem with a road show is you would have to some how make sure you could have enough equipment to always have stuff for new folks to demo. You don't want to have people who already are in the sport to hog all the gear.Ah....true. the purpose is not for the "traveling SES". but how do you police that? "HEY, I've seen your face before you're not a newbie - GET" LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoltan Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Develop a binding which will allow ski boots to work somewhat well on a board. That would take a huge cost out of the picture for demoing a carving setup for new users. It would also create a very easy entry point for skiers interested in our sport. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Develop a binding which will allow ski boots to work somewhat well on a board. That would take a huge cost out of the picture for demoing a carving setup for new users. It would also create a very easy entry point for skiers interested in our sport.Yes, but ski boots are so incredibly stiff that people, especially newbies, tend to spend their time fighting the boot and therefore hating the sport because they think it's too hard. It's a great idea for ease and $$ point of view, but I would rather not introduce a new person to the sport with a ski boot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trailertrash Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Without research all ideas are really just speculation. This is a good point as well. What about writing up a survey to ask people at a random Mtn in your area? Maybe bring some kind of video playback device. Get a vendor table in the lodge or something. Would you try this? How much would you pay to demo this equipment? If the mtn carried rental equipment would you rent it? I think it is very possible that most people are happy skidding and aren't willing to put forth the effort carving takes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 What about writing up a survey to ask people at a random Mtn in your area? Maybe bring some kind of video playback device. Get a vendor table in the lodge or something. Would you try this? How much would you pay to demo this equipment? If the mtn carried rental equipment would you rent it?good suggestion. I think we would be marketing more to skiers than to current boarders? just a thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowrider Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Bumper stickers and Bomber stickers ,Paypal volunteer donation to BOL or your post gets flamed!!!:AR15firinSell us back a sticker kit to promote Hard booting. When do you want my $10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
queequeg Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Why not contact Men's Health, or Outdoor Living. There are soooo many useful entities out there. I think this is a smart idea, because you would be showcasing yourself to a bigger market of people that may not have already selected/invested in a particular snowsport. But the problem (as others have pointed out) is that Ad Space is extremely expensive, and smaller ads are largely wasted. Nonetheless: marketing ourselves to people who are either just getting into snowsports or have not yet selected a snowsport seems like it might yeild higher than average success, because you are not doing battle with their current snowsport activities. With our sport being as small as it is, it would seem that any amount of growth is big growth - which is good, but for growth to be achieved we need cost-effective ways too. I think one of the most practical and effective things we can do is get as much high quality video out as possible. When people see carvers ripping sick turns, they get stoked and it sticks in their heads. Nowadays, it seems like everyone and their kid sister has access to a halfway decent HD video recorder. There are plenty of good videos out there but I think we need more, and better videos out on Youtube and Vimeo to start. That's not to pooh-pooh people's hard work putting together videos, and we do have some pretty great videos out there ... but, I think the more the better. Another thing can help grow the sport is to make sure everyone involved in the sport (currently) is getting better and better: the more RIPPER carvers we have killing it at their local hills, the more interest they will generate. Getting people together on the hill for knowledge sharing is key to creating more and and better carvers on the local hills. I started carving because I saw somebody just f'n killing it on a Burton M series at Temple Mountain in NH one day. I had heard of carving before, seen pictures in the mags etc ... but when I saw that guy riding, it was a decisive moment: I knew I was going to get my hands on hardboots and an alpine deck the moment I saw him. No photo or video even comes close to inspiring the level of awe an in-person exhibition of real carving can generate. I think a demo tent roadshow would be a really good idea: particularly if you target some mountains that have a hardboot possee (Stratton, Loveland, Sugarloaf, Hunter, Mount Hood Meadows etc ... ). People at those mountains have already seen people ripping turns and you can use your local carvers at those mountains as support personnel (hand out as many of those "this is hardboot carving" cards, but with the added information of demo dates. Get local hardbooters to support the demo with informal lessons etc ... And yeah, an all star carving tour would be sweet. Get a few *RIPPER* carvers to run laps full bore under the lifts of a few mountains during the event ... that would definitely help. Put the demo tent at the base of the demo run where the carvers are ripping it up and you have a formula for success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Why not contact Men's Health, or Outdoor Living. There are soooo many useful entities out there. We also contacted a few surfing and skating magazines to do an "offseason" article about the sport with an invitation to come to the SES and take some pics. I had some photos showing how similar carving was to their sport with the idea that it would give the athletes a sport to do in their off season - cross training so to speak. I had one guy that even responded and we talked a few times. He was very interested in doing the article but in the end it came down to them not being able to "commit" to an article about a sport that wasn't completely engrossed in skating. I really couldn't believe it as i see these kinds of articles all the time in my magazines! We even knew a guy that was empathetic to the cause, and he expressed interest but never returned my calls or emails. It would be really cool to take a guy from, say Men's Health, give him all the equipment he needs and send him up with one of my instructors to do an article on the sport. They do articles on skiing all the time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xy9ine Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 One thing I think that needs to happen is a Freecarve competition. Get alpine snowboarding AWAY from Sl and GS racing. I think that will make it much more appealing to the general public. agreed. i have little interest in racing, and believe it has relatively limited spectator appeal, however i can see growth in hardboot allmountain / freecarving. you don't even necessarily need comps - just talented riders getting exposure in magazines & video. with skiers staring to learn to love their edges, and 'mature' snowboarders looking to differentiate themselves from the spinning & jibbing crowd, i can see potential for a hardboot / freecarve rebirth. granted, the lack of readily accessible hardware is a major hurdle to overcome... are there any decent aggressive freecarve vid clips out there? i've scanned youtube w/o much luck. not much interested in the extreme carving thing, more hard charging of variable terrain... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MUD Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 granted, the lack of readily accessible hardware is a major hurdle to overcome... And cost! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrutton Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Back in the early days of (soft boot) snowboarding, there were 'trampoline' exhibitions, and dry-ski-slope (in the UK) exhibitions of snowboarding (also downhill ski and ski ballet) indoor in large shopping malls (I actually participated in one). That certainly helped expose the products to the credit card holding public. Wonder if there are any such events similar to this that could be piggybacked onto. That new year round facility in VA comes to mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trailertrash Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 And cost! I haven't bought any non alpine gear in a while. Is alpine stuff really that much more than decent softboot or ski gear? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xy9ine Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 And cost! indeed. could use some affordable & forgiving entry level hardware out there. alas, the current micro builders can only sell so cheap. we need a major to get on board again. tough hill to climb. the new designs (ie, decambered, vsr) certainly have the potential to appeal to a larger audience. not everyone can afford a quiver of narrowly focussed boards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrutton Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 I haven't bought any non alpine gear in a while. Is alpine stuff really that much more than decent softboot or ski gear? Yes it is, at least comparing it to soft boot retail pricing. Boots are double, bindings are double. Boards are double to triple. Ski's might be closer in price. I think that the inaccessibility kills it though, not the cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Ace* Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 i would LOVE for red bull to sponsor us! They sponsor Sigi, why not someone in the States? Damn, I had no idea ad space was that expensive! Has Bomber thought about putting together a 'PRO' team? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MUD Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 I haven't bought any non alpine gear in a while. Is alpine stuff really that much more than decent softboot or ski gear? Yeah, it is. As someone already posted..... When we talk to people on the hill (quite often actually) you can just watch the enthusiasm drain from there face as you first tell them they have to get it off the internet, then when you mention the cost, they stare blankly over your shoulder....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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