A few years ago, meteorologist Paul Goodloe at The Weather Channel questioned the five inches of fresh snow reported by Snowshoe Mountain in what looked to be rainy West Virginia. But Snowshoe was indeed getting snow, and communications director Joe Stevens saw an opportunity. He tracked down Goodloe at his Atlanta office and assured him it was snowing. He explained that rain at lower elevations of the southern state often meant snow for the mile-high resort.
And Stevens invited Goodloe to visit the resort. After his visit, Goodloe—who turned out to be a long-time skier who had met his wife while skiing at Intrawest Corp.’s Whistler-Blackcomb—became an even bigger fan of Intrawest resorts. And he always checks to see if West Virginia rain means fresh snow for Snowshoe.
This experience shows the value of working closely with meteorologists. “I’ve been approaching these folks for years and it’s been amazing how much coverage we’ve gotten because of it,” says Stevens, who has been at Snowshoe since 1990 (and won a coveted SAMMY in 2000). “From The Weather Channel to lots of regional weather reports, Snowshoe’s conditions are constantly covered because we provide them with what they want.”
What they want is something interesting to report. This can range from great footage of an event (Snowshoe is the rare resort with its own video satellite truck) to correct statistics about snowfall and conditions.
Dave Cochran at WSET in Lynchburg, Virginia, is another meteorologist friend of Snowshoe’s thanks to the work of Stevens. “As a skier, I love to report good news about ski resorts and Snowshoe makes it easy for us,” he says.
Few journalists have as much immediate impact on skiers as meteorologists, making them prime candidates for a marketing campaign. “I have definitely targeted meteorologists,” says Sunday River’s Susan Duplessis. “I began to realize last season how important they are—not only getting out the word that it’s snowing in the mountains, but also getting them to promote the concept of enjoying the outdoors in winter, period.”
What Makes News? Ask
So Duplessis made a media tour of Boston television stations. She set up appointments with two weather departments to learn how best to get information to them. “It worked out beautifully,” she says. “Both stations were happy to get information, actually saying most ski areas don’t take advantage of them and that they appreciated me taking the time to come down and see them.”
Duplessis has also developed a good relationship with the head meteorologist at the New England Cable Network in Boston. “He’s an avid skier and very interested in what’s happening on the mountain,” she explains. “He welcomes footage of events or just powder days and I’ve FedExed him tapes several times.”
Closer to Sunday River, Duplessis has had similar results with Portland-area meteorologists. “I find they are more receptive to your phone calls if they already enjoy skiing or riding,” she says. However, she has also targeted those who don’t yet ride or ski, inviting them to Sunday River to see how much fun winter weather can be (something Stevens and others have also done successfully). “I work as hard at developing relationships with meteorologists as I do with other reporters and assignment editors,” she says. “They are definitely as important in terms of their effect on the industry.”
Active Associations
And sometimes, the industry takes this message to the media. In Michigan and Minnesota, snowsports resorts have banded together to promote specific campaigns.
The Michigan Snowsports Industry Association (MSIA) has pursued a Cold is Cool fax campaign for the past five seasons. “We provide a variety of faxes [to members] to send to television stations whenever one of our member resorts hears a local weather person or other on-air personality refer negatively or positively to cold weather and snow,” says executive director Mickey MacWilliams.
The fax variety pack includes seven different faxes, including addressing bare ground (though the slopes are covered), how Michigan residents love snow, the economic impact of snow and snowsports, and one that simply thanks on-air personalities for positive coverage. Some resorts use the faxes just as they are, others add specific comments, and a few produce their own versions.
For repeat ‘negative’ offenders, MacWilliams volunteers to get involved directly in the communications. “The more ‘kindly’ we remind our broadcasters and weather forecasters that many people love the winter, the better,” he says. “We know faxes we have sent are working because we’ve heard the facts from our faxes spoken on the air, a number of broadcasters have called to say they agree with our plea, and we have noticed more sensitivity when weather broadcasts are made.”
In Minnesota, the industry association MnSNO has run a co-op television campaign with the four major stations in the Minneapolis area. MnSNO runs ads and provides the raw material for the ‘MnSNO Ski and Snowboard Conditions Report,’ which is presented by the stations’ meteorologists. The conditions report provides on-air personalities lots of freedom to personalize the report. The meteorologists have appeared wearing ski goggles, showing film clips of themselves at the slopes, and referring to the association’s website.
“It has been incredibly successful,” says executive director Phil Peterson. “It’s changed the vocabulary of the on-air meteorologists and other personalities. They talk more about winter sports throughout the broadcast, and we also have them coming to the slopes more often and mentioning it. It’s contagious and it’s growing nicely.”
Two Big Examples
With the wide range of weather differences between mountains and their skiers’ homes, meteorologists are positioned to bridge the gap. For instance, Mammoth’s Joani Lynch says, “Because 90 percent of our visitors currently come from balmy Southern California, we work closely with the weather forecasters in this region to communicate current weather information at Mammoth. There are always huge differences in our weather—while it might be 80 degrees and beach weather on the coast, it could have just snowed two feet at Mammoth.”
Lynch says she’s noticed more networks reporting snow conditions during the weather segment. Because of this trend, she’s planning Mammoth’s first ‘Weather Summit’ for next February. “We’ll invite the meteorologists in the region to attend a three-day conference with educational speakers and plenty of time for skiing and riding,” says Lynch. “The goal is to have a few of the attendees broadcast their weather segment live from Mammoth, as well as to expose everyone to what we offer their viewers.”
North America’s busiest resort, Whistler-Blackcomb, faces less of a challenge. “We’re located 1 1/2 hours from Vancouver,” says PR and communications guru Chris Nicolson. “Down there, the local ski resorts of Grouse, Seymour, and Cypress keep conditions in the minds of Vancouver’s residents,” he says. “In addition, Vancouverites are active and there are usually comments about the snowlines and mountain conditions during newscasts.”
But Whistler-Blackcomb still works closely with the region’s weather reporters. “Whistler-Blackcomb’s media strategy is to reinforce the relationship between the on-air personalities and our resort by hosting them on our slopes,” says Nicolson. “A media relations person can’t ask for anything more than the weather person reading the forecast with a smile and raccoon eyes and then talking about their great weekend in the mountains.” In addition, he works hard at providing news through the resort’s charismatic senior communications officer, Chris Strome—they often place him on morning weather reports. (Strome likes to say that thousands of local women wake up to his voice every morning.)
And like PR directors everywhere, Nicolson urges meteorologists to describe a snowstorm as “fantastic for riding” rather than “deadly.”
Cover Your Bets
It’s not just the big-station meteorologists who deserve special treatment, either. Says Snowshoe’s Stevens, “It’s great to work with well-known personalities like Paul Goodloe at The Weather Channel, but I also try developing relationships with younger meteorologists.”
This past season, Stevens encouraged James Canterbury at WDTV in Clarksburg, West Virginia, to visit the resort several times—resulting in repeated coverage of Snowshoe’s conditions. Canterbury’s now a devoted fan of Snowshoe and you never know—maybe he’ll be reporting snow conditions at The Weather Channel one day. If so, you can bet he’ll communicate his love of snow just as much as Goodloe does now.
