LiftDigital™. Photo: Alpine Media
According to Businesswire, the global market for digital marketing drew $468 billion in revenue in 2021. That’s a decent bit of cash, with 70.8 percent ($331 billion) coming from mobile marketing alone. A partnership between Alpine Media and Edison Interactive is capitalizing on that by bringing more than 6,500 digital display ad installations to chairlifts and gondolas across the country this season. The displays will run a program called Ski Ad Manager, meaning riding a chairlift or gondola will now be accompanied by video ads for everything from local events to promoting businesses. Banner ads also accompany some of the displays more relevant to a guest’s time on the hill, like weather updates and conditions impacting lift and run access.
“Skiers spend 75 minutes a day in gondolas and on chairlifts,” says Edison Interactive CEO Jeremy Ostermiller. “We’re opening that up to local businesses to connect with this specific audience, and equally help the ski resorts strengthen their partnerships with local business communities.”
The “75 minutes a day on gondolas and chairlifts” part of the equation makes skiers and snowboarders what the company calls “a concentrated market of affluent, engaged audiences in an unsaturated environment.” Alpine Media’s website claims 57 percent of skiers and snowboarders at resorts have a household income above $100,000, stepping firmly into that discretionary income group. But if you think the hill is no place for real-time digital ads for events, restaurants, or weather updates while riding a chairlift, Edison and Alpine beg to differ. The Ski Ad Manager website isn’t shy about calling the ski audience affluent, and they’ve targeted them as a growing audience with ski area visits increasing 10.8 percent over the past five years. According to a study from Europe’s Journal of Psychology, which they cited in a press release announcing the platform, advertising is 40 percent more successful when an audience is in a good mood. “This is an especially ripe opportunity to create brand loyalists,” they say.
So, that part should dissuade them from installing digital ad kiosks in the ocean for surfers.
