2020 Winner
2020 Winners
BRP Ski-Doo
Escape Mountain
With winters coming in later and later in the year, it is harder than ever to drive incremental sales in the saturated snowmobile industry. Therefore, we needed to bring new entrants to the category. To do so, we created thrilling content, showing exclusive experiences rather than focusing on product features.
BRP invented Ski-Doo, the first snowmobile, in 1922. After almost a century, Ski-Doo still had a very dominant share of the market. The industry is pretty still and often doesn’t see growth YoY. Therefore, to increase sales by 10.5% and be able to maintain an overriding market share of 46.4%, Ski-Doo needed to grow the number of new entrants.
Having created the category, Ski-Doo obviously knew its core target: 45+, fervent snowmobilers, high income and living in rural markets. But which consumers should Ski-Doo target to grow the snowmobile community? An interesting insight was that cold and winter discomforts are the number one barrier to entry. Therefore, it was a lot easier to convert extreme winter sports enthusiasts (ice climbers, downhill skiers, glacier hikers) to snowmobile, than converting summer riders (motorcycles, watercraft). And to excite these winter daredevils, we needed to inject our communication with an extreme dose of adrenaline.
Insights
This campaign capitalizes on one important category truth: it is really hard to get consumers interested in snowmobiles before the first snow hits the ground. Until the first snow flakes, consumers are not in the “winter” mindset and postpone buying. Also, because of climate change, the first snow is recorded later each year. With less time to hit their sales target, it is quite a challenge to generate growth for snowmobile manufacturers. It was critical to create enthusiasm for the snowmobile category early in the fall, regardless of snow precipitations.
The snowmobile category primarily brings forth a rational communication centred around product’s features. This traditional communication approach worked well with Ski-Doo’s core target but failed to attract the desired new entrants, the winter extreme sports lovers. To create excitement, we needed to get them to experience “that Ski-Doo Feeling”, our newly launched brand proposition.
Riding a Ski-Doo is an experience so unique and unparalleled, it’s often difficult to describe. We had to show the Ski-Doo feeling, not just say it.
And to bring this Ski-Doo Feeling to life, we decided to create an impactful documentary, which would best carry the emotions and adrenaline rush the targeted winter sports junkies were craving.
Execution
Think Escape Room.
With an outdoor twist.
On top of an isolated blizzard mountain.
In a remote area.
This is what “Escape Mountain”, a 45-minute documentary by Ski-Doo, was about.
It’s riders vs. Mother Nature as five pro riders Ski-Doo ambassadors take That Ski-Doo Feeling to the extreme in a battle of survival to escape the mountain. They were dropped in the frozen wilderness without gear on top of a 100k acre mountain in one of the most extreme areas of western Canada. Over a period of 48 hours, they defeated the extreme weather conditions, tested the Ski-Doo endurance, went through mind and physical games to get to the finish line first. Each mountain escaper went through hell and back on their Ski-Doo and they generated scenes that even a Hollywood blockbuster couldn’t have staged.
Furthermore, the content strategy was a way to create an impact early in the fall. Indeed, we needed a communication that was distinctive and impactful to change a deeply entrenched consumer behaviour i.e. waiting for the first snow fall to kick off the buying process.
“Escape Mountain by Ski-Doo” was a four-month campaign, centred around a 45-min documentary on the Discovery Channel, in USA and Canada. Escape Mountain aired in program, during prime time viewing hour. It was heavily promoted by Discovery in all of their TV shows to maximize viewership. The long format allowed the adrenaline rush we needed to convince new entrants from the extreme winter sports community.
Like a blockbuster film, it was launched during Ski-Doo’s annual sales event, with dealers and their VIP customers. The attendance of the pro riders featured in the documentary added a layer of excitement.
The show was then cut into shorter videos for online viewers on Ski-Doo’s website and YouTube. These digital platforms featured exclusive content, including stories about the five participants. To target the right audience, we leveraged Ski-Doo’s first party data but also opened the targeting to a broader audience including lookalikes and extreme winter sports fanatics.
Escape Mountain was also supported by a weather-triggered digital campaign. When the snow first hit the ground, we switched to more product-focused ads. This added another layer of complexity, since the campaign covered a vast territory in USA and Canada and each region had their specific weather patterns.
We invested most of the budget before the first snow hit(August-November), a bold strategy that succeeded in stimulating preseason sales, even in regions that had no snow precipitation before December.
Results
Not only did we increase the market share by 5.8 pp. and generated 18% more sales YoY, but we overturned the industry trend. Without Ski-Doo, the industry was decreasing by 6.1%. Now, it’s growing by 5.8% vs last year.
The campaign succeeded in creating a lift before the snow hits the ground in every North American market. By December 1st, Ski-Doo witnessed an increase of 82% in its YOY sales leads and +6% of the store visits were tracked back to the YOY media efforts.
Escape Mountain gained more than 16.8 million impressions and over 670,000 engagements on social media.
On Facebook and YouTube, comments poured in within a few hours of the first post: “I want in”, “How can I participate?” This keen interest convinced Ski-Doo to feature real-life snowmobilers, as opposed to pro riders, in their new 2020 brand campaign.
“Escape Mountain” perfectly communicated Ski-Doo’s new and edgier positioning, created excitement amongst new entrants from the extreme winter sports community and, thanks to its engaging content, consumers considered Ski-Doo even before this year’s first snow fall. That’s the Ski-Doo Feeling!