On a 9- by 12-foot Big Mo outdoor television, high-energy visual images of skiing and snowboarding supported by equally high-energy music…a 28-foot-high inflatable mountain supports climbers…a bicycle rider gets big air over a wooden obstacle course…all the while an emcee jokes with the crowd—these are some of the pulsing, fast-paced features of a road show visiting 30 university campuses in the Northeast this fall. It’s Winter Mission and its message is “Let’s do winter!”
The program is the brainchild of the marketing department at the American Skiing Company (ASC). In an effort to reach students with learn-to-ski incentives and discounted tickets and packages, ASC teamed up with Mountain Dew, Airwalk, Fila, Paul Mitchell Systems, Sony and Jeep to bring the excitement of winter sports directly to college students. Along with the big screen TV, the inflatable wall and the bike rider, the show also has an interactive truck featuring four 31-inch video monitors with ski and snowboard games, a snowboard simulator (a hydraulic snowboard “mechanical bull”), in-line skates to demo, a Sony tent with the latest games and a half dozen other tents with products and coupons.
Throughout the one-day appearances at different campuses, drawings are held for free lift passes and ski and snowboard equipment. Students can wander from station to station testing themselves athletically, picking up free learn-to-ski or -snowboard passes good at any of ASC’s seven areas (Killington, Sunday River, Attitash, Sugarbush, Mt. Snow, Sugarloaf and Haystack), or a season pass, also good at all seven, for $475. A popular item is a card that costs $45, and allows college students the first ticket free and subsequent tickets at any of the ASC resorts for $29 midweek and $33 weekend and holidays.
“It’s an experiment—an expensive experiment—but we will most definitely continue,” said Eric Schneider, ASC promotions manager. All told, ASC will have spent a little over half a million dollars on the show, with some of the cost offset by sponsors. Returns vary from campus to campus, but at Dartmouth College, one of the stronger venues, $3,000 worth of tickets were sold in three hours. Next year, as the show gains popularity, ASC hopes to recoup even more of the expenses through sponsorships and sales.
According to Schneider, the main purpose of these shows is to “break out of the box,” create new images and messages about skiing and snowboarding and reach out to a young audience. “These are not the usual consumer shows where we are preaching to the converted,” said Schneider. “Here we are trying to reach those who do not already participate and show them how much fun winter can be.”
Will it work? According to students interviewed, the show was “cool and fun—especially the bike guy.” Most said they hoped to be able to take advantage of some of the coupons and go skiing or snowboarding this winter, as long as it didn’t compete with college activities.
With the success of the shows this fall, ASC will not only continue Winter Mission next year, but expand them. On the wishlist is a portable halfpipe and more sponsored events. But whatever toys are available, it’s the excitement and energy of the event right in the middle of campus that promises to awaken a new interest in sports that should always have been about the upper end of excitement and energy.
