Aspen Business News

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo.—While not forgetting their traditional customer base, nor completely eschewing print outlets as a way of getting messages across, Aspen Skiing Co. has made a clear direction change as to how they market their product to the next generation of skiers and riders.

“In the old days it was print. We did brochures, ski magazine ads and direct mail,” Christian Knapp, Skico’s Vice President of Marketing, said Wednesday morning during a talk with the Snowmass Village Rotary Club. “Now we have to think how we market mobile, where they see our apps.”

As social media has become “the number one activity on the web, it replaced porn,” Knapp said to chuckles that spread throughout the Viceroy Hotel’s small conference room, Skico is trying to be proactive in its response to the rapidly changing media world.

“We have a very integrative solution,” Knapp noted, that includes a web site, social outposts and mobile content. In terms of online conversations, Skico engages guests through e-mail signup, social media sites and mobile signups. “We are heavily engaged” in a social strategy that includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Foursquare, Tumblr, Flickr and Instagram, he said.

Development of a “brand new app” is anticipated to be completed later this week, and by month’s end, Skico plans to launch a “new, full web site” that Knapp said is “much better and more fluid” and which offers more integration for the public at large.

This new approach may also produce more bang for the buck. While spending on advertising that works with mobile devices is still minuscule – Knapp said it comprises less than 1 percent of the entire budget – he did note that Internet advertising encompasses about 18.7 percent.

“What has decreased is (the money spent) in newspapers and magazines,” Knapp said. In response to a question from Realtor Greg Rulon of Joshua & Co., Knapp admitted that Skico was buying a half-page ad this weekend in the Chicago Tribune. The cost for this one-time, full color ad in one of America’s leading newspapers: $25,000.

“You can run an entire (social media) campaign for a year” for that kind of money, he said.

Knapp suggested it’s unlikely the company would see a return on investment from the Tribune expenditure. But in an effort to reach different segments of its customer base, especially Baby Boomers, Skico still supports traditional media and still conducts e-mail blasts that offer last-minute deals such as the recently released Kids Ski Free deal for spring.

But clearly, Skico’s new marketing manager, who was hired last July from Vail Resorts, has his focus on growing digital and social media in the future. Metrics can be tracked as people click through digital display ads; also attractive is the control that businesses may have over their own message through blogs and the release of beautiful imagery.

“We use Twitter almost as a guest service tool. Having that conversation (with a guest) has to have a payoff down the road. As our brand grows, it will only become more important,” Knapp said.

Of course that can backfire too – earlier in the season, Skico President Mike Kaplan was criticized locally for writing a blog on Tumblr that some felt painted an overly positive picture of snow conditions. Knapp preferred to say the blog spoke of how the “tide is turning” and that the “glass is half full.”

“Tumblr has become the number one blogging tool” which he said doesn’t necessarily have a lot of followers “but it’s where we go to push content.”

The Red Bull company’s approach to marketing was also noted by Skico’s Knapp. “One thing they’ve done is created a whole media house.” A glossy magazine (samples of which were handed out during the X Games) and sponsorship of a movie, “The Art of Flight,” allow the energy drink company to control and reinforce their image by producing content that was born in-house and seems worlds away from traditional advertising models.

The Aspen and Snowmass communities are highly unusual in that advertising dollars still support two daily newspapers, two weekly newspapers and three glossy magazines. And while some of the Snowmass Rotarians in attendance professed their continued allegiance to picking up the free newspapers in the morning, several of the members admitted that they look online for their news first and foremost.

On Wednesday, it became obvious that in its effort to stay ahead of the marketing curve, Skico is serving notice to traditional, old school media that changes are in the wind, or at least the blogosphere.