SALOMON SKI BINDINGS
Year One
Situation: New sales organization in North America
after previous sales disasters. Binding brand has a distant second place market share, way behind Look Nevada. Company wants to do explosive consumer advertising.
Situation: Time for consumer advertising.
Opportunity: Prepare a promotional film for ski shop show-and-tell countertop viewers. (A few years before commercial videos and DVDs.)
Branding recommendation: Forget consumer advertising… for now.
Invest entire ad budget in one massive and unforgettable direct mail program to the trade – to introduce the entire new team, show a new level of commitment to sales and dealer support, and position the new organization indelibly as dedicated players in a solidly financed partnership with ski retailers.
Result: First place market share by end of season.
Year Two
Branding strategy: Focus primary thrust of consumer advertising message exclusively on trendsetter skiers, the stars of the slope. Introduce Salomon ski bindings as a performance product, not a safety product – an entirely new definition of product function.
Creative strategy: Make a memorable statement that proves Salomon understands and addresses the primary product need for high-performance skiers, who, unlike average skiers, don’t want their bindings to open too soon, not until absolutely necessary. Salomon becomes the answer to every great skier’s worst nightmare: Premature release.
Result: Even stronger first place market share by end of season.
Year Three
Branding Recommendation: Introduce Hot Dog Skiing to public as a sport that could not be possible without Salomon bindings. Hotdoggers put maximum stress on bindings and have to stay on skis under much more extreme pressure than downhillers. Demonstrate how Salomon’s protection against premature release supports the breath-taking acrobatics of hotdog participants.
Creative strategy: Let the action tell the story. No voice over. No music. No how-the-binding-is-made hype or product beauty shots. Just totally wild performances by kids on skis. On the soundtrack, ski-carving SFX in the moguls, silence when airborne, natural ambient sounds of wind, and the encouraging yells and enthusiastic realtime dialog of the hotdoggers themselves. Shoot for 26-minute length and try to get some TV station interest.
Results: This film is so popular in ski shops across the country that local TV stations grab it for programming in more than 100 key market areas. It indelibly links the Salomon brand to hotdogging and extreme skiing. It wins a Silver Hugo award at the Chicago International Film festival. And it also introduces to America, for the first time, an expression that until then was buried in hotdog skiing jargon but afterwards became national (and worldwide) slanguage. It is an expression so cool that Stephen makes it the title of the film…
Go For It!
