Four years ago, Massachusetts-based marketing consultant Larry Bearfield approached the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) and all four branches of the military to launch “Operation Ski and Snowboard,” a national ski campaign aimed at getting members of the 12-million-strong military market on the slopes. After getting both military and NSAA endorsement, OpSki (as it has been nicknamed after the military penchant for acronyms) has seen steady growth in three seasons.
Bearfield and his partner-wife, Robin Emerson, provide the marketing know-how and contacts for bases and ships as well as ski resorts interested in tapping into the military market niche. Through their company, The Wonga Group, Bearfield and Emerson provide the “OpSki Military Snowsports Resource Guide,” which is distributed to base Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) personnel across the country and to some bases and Navy ships overseas. The resource guide lists names of resorts, addresses, phone numbers, details on learn-to-ski and snowboard programs, base ski deals, packages, special events aimed at military personnel and the names of bases that sell discount tickets. A corresponding Website (www.opski.com), currently the most successful military recreation site on the Internet, offers chances to enter sweepstakes and, still to come, is an OpSki Mall selling ski and snowboard clothing and equipment.
For the 1997-1998 season, Bearfield estimates MWR offices—which provide service men and women with child care, libraries, various clubs, recreation and travel opportunities—sold 250,000 lift tickets and vouchers promising “special OpSki and military deals” that were also printed with a sweepstakes form and assorted coupons. This year, the OpSki Website will include discounted vacation packages as well as savings on Jofa helmets. In introducing discounts, however, Bearfield says he must be careful not to upset relationships with MWR offices and base exchanges, which plow the money from profits back into recreation programs.
A growing ticket distribution network on military bases has helped ski resorts contact new skiers and boarders and, through OpSki, those resorts are coached on how and where to advertise to reach military personnel and their families.
For the ski industry, OpSki has fact sheets and a white paper titled “6 Great Reasons Why the Military Is an Outstanding Niche Market.” This report outlines much of the data Bearfield has accumulated, because one of his early missions was to pull together facts and figures that no one else seemed to be gathering. The stateside U.S. military represents a market of almost 12 million active duty, reserve and retired personnel as well as Department of Defense civilians with base privileges, plus their families. Of those on active duty, 78 percent are 18 to 35 years old. High-school grads make up 99 percent of the enlisted ranks and military personnel have more than one million children.
Bearfield surveyed Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps facilities and determined that more than half already sold lift tickets on base through the MWR offices, 60 percent rented equipment and 35 percent had a ski shop. He also determined that a quarter of the NSAA member resorts already sold tickets on base.
In the course of this research, Bearfield learned about a program at Berkshire East in Charlemont, Mass., that attracts military snow fans from as far away as Pennsylvania. The special weekend event held expressly for service people has been going for 17 years. “They come for the camaraderie as much as the snow,” says Bearfield. The Berkshire East event inspired Bearfield and Emerson to add SNO!!!JAM to the OpSki stable. Sponsored by Budweiser, SNO!!!JAM is a day of activities for military personnel and their dependents, including ski races, races for never-evers, snowshoe obstacle courses and awards ceremonies for the winners.
“We make Snojam as turn-key as possible,” says Bearfield. “Just give us the space. We’ll bring in our own sound system, race personnel, set up the race course and snowshoe obstacle race.” While he is working to increase participation in SNO!!!JAM, Bearfield points out that the event is just one component to OpSki and this past winter took place at Berkshire East, Sunday River, Me., and Copper Mountain, Colo. “Although on-mountain military events can be a wild success,” says Bearfield, “numerous factors make them difficult to establish.”
For one thing, Bearfield explains, military people are used to the strictest of time schedules and smoothly running operations. That means that any military event requires extensive preparation and dedication. They won’t brook much in the way of improvisation when they’re expecting a well-planned competition or lessons, so Bearfield says running a successful event for military personnel sometimes means a shift in attitude on the part of ski-area event planners.
But the results can be good. Most service people who attended last year’s events at Copper Mountain and Sunday River were never-evers, which points to the value of the program as a way to attract new skiers. But besides emphasizing the value, this might also indicate that resorts need to reserve instructors specifically for SNO!!!JAM. An additional benefit of the OpSki connection when arranging such events is that it means the ability to tap into military newspapers, magazines, radio and television—probably a new source of publicity for most ski areas.
Overall, Bearfield claims, “OpSki accounted for over half a million skier visits, about one percent of the entire skiing population.” This figure includes the quarter of a million tickets sold through pre-existing deals between MWR offices and resorts in addition to OpSki-sponsored visits.
Because of its success, Bearfield and Emerson have created Operation SummerFun! (OpSummFun) to follow in the tradition of OpSki and concentrate on resort offers and activities during the summer months beginning in 2000. It, also, will include free resort listings in a marketing packet to be distributed to bases and seek to get service people off base for R&R.
Rob Linde, director of marketing for NSAA, says, “I think OpSki has been extremely successful. This was an ignored market by our industry and OpSki goes right to the source,” by both increasing repeat visits from experienced skiers and snowboarders and by attracting new enthusiasts. Members of the military are “active and athletic young people with lots of disposable income,” Linde says. Bearfield cites his son, a Marine, as an example. “He lives on the base, he eats on the base. The $14,000-plus that these kids are making is disposable income. How many college kids have that kind of money to spend?”
OpSki receives no government funding or subsidy of any kind and relies on money from sponsors of events and gifts for financing.
Larry Bearfield can be reached at Operation Ski and Snowboard, (978) 371-0808.
