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We Have Snow: Visit Us, Please!

By: Dwayne W. Waite Jr.

If your consumer doesn't come to you, sometimes you have to use advertising to come to them. At least, that is what the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO) did this month to skiers. In parts of the west and mountain west, the weather has been pretty mild. Great for those who don't mind a light snowfall, but terrible for the skiing business. According to the CTO, numbers across its 22-member resorts are down 10.65% compared to last year. It says that another reason for the drop could be the amount of in-state skiers who decided to stay away from the slopes.

So the CTO relied on advertising.

The tourism office placed the ad you see above in the New York Times, telling its readers that the heavy snowfall it received recently made it the best place in America to ski. Hopefully for them, it works. The ad was estimated to cost around $50,000, and it is the first time since 2002 the CTO made such a buy due to weather. The last time wasn't because of snowfall, either. It was for the exact opposite, actually. In 2002, then Governor Bill Owens told the nation that Colorado was on fire, because of the series of ongoing wildfires. The CTO took out ads to foster a change in national perception.

Here is one of the underlying problems when it comes to the correct application of advertising. If the CTO wasn't experiencing a snow shortfall, it would not have resorted to advertising. It thought that people would just flock to it, per usual. But now, since the weather has been too warm until recently, it had to pony up and spend a significant amount of money to help crawl out of a hole.

It is easy to become complacent when you have a captive audience, and a ready market. But what if externalities, like weather, keep them from coming? What will your organization do? Or, for the case of the CTO, how can it reach as many people as possible to salvage its tourist season?

Should they have a ready advertising campaign? It doesn't sound like a bad idea. Developing a way to readily connect with its consumers in case weather like this comes along could be worthwhile. They even opened earlier this year compared to last and are still behind.

Developing an advertising campaign involves more than announcing that you have snow now. It should be recommended to have scenarios ready (and in place) in case such things happen, and devise ways to boost the low visitor levels during times of low snowfall.

But in the meantime, let's hope CTO's toss-up to the NYT helps bring people to the slopes.

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About the Author

Dwayne W. Waite Jr. is partner and principal at JDW: The Charlotte Agency, a marketing and advertising shop in Charlotte, NC. He enjoys consumer behavior, economics, and football.

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