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Graphic Design student looking for ideas

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Hi, im a Graphic Design student in the UK and im doing a project where i have to target 40 - 50 year old in taking up snowboarding, it will be an advetrtsing campaign, please can you give me some ideas please and also why do you think there are not many 40 -50 year old boards? Please get back to me. Thanks alot! happy boarding!
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
bredgraves, no idea mate. You'll also notice that not many old people eat Twixes. Do you know why? It's because they collect things.

Anyway, welcome to snowHead snowHead , and good luck with your research!
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Quote:

You'll also notice that not many old people eat Twixes. Do you know why? It's because they collect things.

hyweljenkins, Puzzled Puzzled

My suggestions: first, don't patronise your target audience (e.g. by suggesting that 50 is a top-end. I was 58 when I took up boarding). Second, need to identify the key characteristics of the group you need to reach. The most likely people to take up boarding in later life will be those who already ski, probably quite well, and are looking for an extra challenge. Third, they will either be pretty fit and active, or have aspirations to be, or appear to be, fit or active. So you need to think about where people who correspond to those criteria are likely to find your ads. Maybe in existing snow or other sports magazine, or maybe gyms, health clubs, ski shows etc. And in exhibitions about foreign property. Also in ski resorts - promotions like a free introductory lesson, cheap hire, might tempt many skiers to give it a day, in the middle of a week's holiday. Snowdomes might also be worth trying - some special courses, perhaps? Several places have over '50s days, get some role models out there and get some of them off skis and onto a board. Role models are important, and learners of a similar age - they will not want to be learning with a load of fearless 15 year old skateboarders (and probably vice versa....)

Need some role models - Sean Connery on a snowboard.... Maybe he's too old. A big name-led campaign. Need some research to identify the right music (and no, it's not Frank Sinatra or Demis Roussos!)

This is an interesting project because the "baby boomers" are huge potential spenders on just about everything, and our lucky generation is the one which has the financial security in retirement, including early retirement, which enables us to spend big chunks of time enjoying leisure pursuits.
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Not many people are likely to take up skiing, or boarding in their 40's.

The smaller number of older boarders is IMO down to two things. Firstly, snowboarding hasn't really been around that long, so boarders are generally younger. Secondly, snowboarding is a lot more physically demanding than skiing.

BTW, I took up snowboarding at the age of 39, having started skiing at 31.
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ssnowman wrote:


Secondly, snowboarding is a lot more physically demanding than skiing.


I cannot agree with that as a general statement - more physically demanding during the early learning process when there is a lot of edge catching, falling and getting up to do but no where near as demanding when experienced in my opinion. For example I snowboarded one day last year with a badly torn calf muscle, I could hardly walk, let alone ski on it but snowboarding was no problem.
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Quote:

Not many people are likely to take up skiing, or boarding in their 40's.

This is fair point but the numbers discrepancy is only partly down to boarding having not been around for long. Depending on the purpose of the advertising campaign a general "snow sports" oriented campaign, encouraging people to get out onto the slopes, might be a starting point. However, it is undoubtedly the case that quite a lot of people DO take up skiing in their 40s - there are plenty of people that age in beginner groups but middle aged beginner snowboarders are much rarer. Being a beginner snowboarder is certainly physically strenuous but so is climbing mountains and plenty of older people do that. And just look at all those elderly french people cycling round the mountains! There IS an issue with the image of the sport, and that is the kind of issue which can be addressed by the right kind of ad campaigns. I still think this is a reasonable project.
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
ssnowman wrote:
Not many people are likely to take up skiing, or boarding in their 40's.


hmmmm - not sure I would agree. I took up skiing when I was 45 and I have met quite a few people who took it up at a similar age. I think there are a lot of people like me who never had the opportunity as a child, couldn't afford it when first married and then with children on scene waited until the youngest was old enough to start. Perhaps that age group are more likely to take up skiing rather than snowboarding, as snowboarding is probably perceived as a cool young activity, because that's the way that it is mostly promoted. I think it's a mistake to try to promote it as a way for an "oldie" to recapture their youth and be cool and trendy - that's rather sad - but just promote it as another way to have fun on snow, with no age barriers, as pam w said, why limit it to 50?
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Also - promoting the healthy benefits of the accompanying lifestyle ie mountain environment, exercise etc coupled with the mountain 'good living' ideal... food, wine, hot tubs, group meals and general shared good times.

"You have done the work - now take the time to enjoy!"
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Quote:

"You have done the work - now take the time to enjoy!"

yes, this is a good line, for those of post retirement age, who have plenty of leisure and plenty of money and mostly much better health than previous generations of retirees. Certainly not hankering to be young and trendy. That is, as ennalsj said, sad. And sad isn't the image you want to go for. More like "having the time of their lives, kids grown up, enough cash, can ski for four months a year, don't get bored, try snowboarding". But that highlights the need to spread the age range; not many people in their '40s lucky enough to be retired!

I wonder what the age range is of people buying those apartments in Bansko?
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fatbob, my experience of returning to skiing after 9 years of only boarding is that skiing is less physical. Mind you when I am boarding I am trying to carve and that takes it out of the legs pretty quickly.

bredgraves, dump the jumpy spinny image prefered by the snowboard mags and holiday companies and show boarding as an interesting alternative to skiing. Concentrate on powder and carving.
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For an marketing campaign like this to work you need to detact the current, and expensively built up branding of snowboarders from the assumed preconception of your target group.

Snowboarders are branded as young, white, slim, hip, into modern music, cool baggy streets clothes, light drugs and snowparks.

Most 40 -50 yrs old are not many of these.

So an ad campaign needs to say to the 40 -50 yr olds that they aren't going to look ridicilous trying snowboarding and that snowboarding is at last least equal to skiing.

Since, in my experience, most older skiiers have already made up their minds you need a campaign that targets new customers. One such group I can think of targeting would be hikers. Sell them the dream of hiking off with their light snowboard and comfortable boots to the wilderness. Images of unspolit nature and gently cruising down a quite mountain. An ensure that the clothes they are wearing are functional not about fashion.

thats my idea.
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Guys, I think the point has been missed.

Whether or not 40 - 50 year olds want to board of if more people of this age range ski rather than board is irrellevant - it's all to do with developing a concept for an ad (or a series of ads) that captures something that isn't currenty presented at the moment in advertising campaigns. Whether or not the campaign would work in real life is down to PR and Marketing peeps.

bredgraves, when I did my Graphics and Illustration courses we had similar projects. One was to design a series of skateboards in conjunction Disney and Santa Cruz (all hypothetical of course) utlising the brand awareness of Disney throiugh its charecters and the skating knowledge and engineering of SC. The most challenging was to design posters and advertising matrerial that promoted the whaling and fishing museum in Hull, makiing it eye-catching to all but remaining synpathetic to the traditional feel of the museum. That was a really hard task, making a by-gone age seem appealing to folk, right as Playstations and the like were just appearing.

It's about making people believe they can do the thing you're promoting without it being something that is ridiculous. I could quite easily see a bunch of 50-year-olds snaking their way down a slope being of interest.

Anyway, enough of me rambling, just look at the Daily Mail Ski mag this month and read the David Gower article - that's cool and they've tried to update his skiing style without making him look like an idiot!!

I agree with nessy - you want potential snowboarders to see a grace and style in snowboarding that really can be conjoured up by images of beautiful vistas and someone carving their way through a load of powder. An old granny on a half-pipe may be eye-catching to younger people (it would be plain funny) but I think if the target audience is anything like my folks, they'd just laugh!!!

The money sid eof things is also a key seller. Like someone's already mentioned, the people you're targetting may be better off (or maybe not, after seeingt heir kids through Uni!!!) and as children themselves, may never have been skiing, let alone boarding. Promote the fact that it can be cheap, that the beauty of being out on a mountain needn't cost the earth. Everything needs to shout 'QUALITY' but not 'COST'.

Hope this helps
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Quote:

An old granny on a half-pipe

agree absolutely - don't go "jumpy spinny". I used to be able to do somersaults on a trampoline but now a gentle forward roll leaves my head spinning. Though I love watching the kids in the park (or skateboarders in the street, for that matter) and admire their skill and courage. You won't find me in a park on my board (though I have done a half pipe on blades). BUT, I am an elderly snowboarder, one of a small group, and I was first a skier. I haven't met many older snowboarders but I suspect that most have, despite what killian says, started as skiers. Just a guess. So, what attracted me? First and foremost, watching snowboarders in powder, from the chairlift. It just looked like snowboards and powder were made for each other. (My snowboarding is not yet nearly good enough though - that's winter's target and my excuse for buying a new and slightly longer board...). Second, I like learning new things and wanted a challenge and one great advantage of being older is that you're not so bothered what other people think. Younger, image-conscious people who are good skiers can sometimes not stand the thought of faffing around on a nursery slope looking like a wally. So, snowboarding for older people needs to be sold on quality of experience in the mountains - hikers are a good idea, killian. However, when I was in S & R yesterday (helmet for hubby) the attendant, who was fantastically helpful, was really from the climbing section. He said it's much harder selling new stuff to climbers because they are notoriously tight with their money and reckon a 10 year old jacket is still in its infancy. So yes, promoting quality rather than cost would be essential.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Specialman, sounds to me like the kind folk here have offered a number of workable strategies here. Any idea which one you are going to go for? I'd be interested to see you how you develop these ideas.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
pam w, LOL at that post - yup - climbers are indeed a tight fisted bunch. Hey... if a piece of kit ten years old can do the job then why upgrade for a miniscule advantage. The y only splitters are us ice climbers.. every year new shiny axes and crampons are released upon the market... all promising us an increase in grade hehehe. Puzzled
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 Poster: A snowHead
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If I were to do it then I'd look at scourcing some pics from something like a Tony Stone pic archive or Getty Images book, you know, one of those royalty-free image libraries. IF you have a photography department at your Uni ask around. Also ask your tutors if they have something like a comstock photo library license.

I picked up loads of skiing brochures the other day from the travel agent and the mix is amazing - there are the ones that shout 'active' like Neilson, playing on the modern view of skiing as if your life depended on it. Then there are your traditional Crystal and Thomson books that are family/fun oriented. The Club Med catalogue is great because it's showing skiing as a high-class, serene activity to do that's not just about hurtling down the side of K2!!! I'd grab one of those and that may be a good starting point to work from.

I've learned from doing the magazine I work on that because the majority of my readers are between 30 and mid-50s, I have to think carefully about layout and font type/font size. Many of my older readers complain when I run text as an overlay across a pagte that has a busy background - they just can't read it. Also, avoid white text on black because although it looks good, it's harder to read than black text on white.

We tend to use basic font types too. eurostle Bold or Bold Condensed is a great one becasue it's pretty modern but it's clear to read, not too fancy (serif fonts are a nightmare and look cheap). If you are going to put a lot of text on the page, pace it. It's so much easier to read when broken into sections than one huge block. Be careful of spreading the text around a page too much though - the eye needs to naturally flow through each section without losing where to move to next.

Looking at a mag I have to hand for good ads (Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard) the EasyJet DPS ads are great. They utilsie the familiar Easyjet colours (orange and white) that a lot of people will know from the airport programme on ITV and they put the info in order of importance; the catchy strapline is most obvious ("Europe's Biggest Ski Lift" purtaining to that fact it flies to ski resorts) followed by how many airports it delivers skiers to, a sample price (£22.99 to Geneva) and then the logo and again a list of airports it flies to, just to re-enforce the fact that this is an established airline, albeit a budget one.

The BA ads (the flight pice in the shape of a cloud over some mountains) is clever but if pushed too far, could becaome hard to read. Still, it's British Airways and a lot of 40-50 year olds, I'm sure, would see BA as a reliable airline that's worth the money.

Hope this helps
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Bredgraves,

As examples, I wouldn't use this - http://www.flickr.com/photos/liamdaly/155665649/ -as it's too youth, too full-on sporty.

I'd maybe go for someothingh more like this - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shortstopeleven/101483859/ - although a better shot woudl be more attractive, one that is more about the joy of being outdoors rather than ragging it at full-tilit down the slope as if the beer's run out at the bar!! Very Happy

Just my opinion though... Laughing
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
id play on the desire to go off piste, carving through the powder. we all know its much easier to do this on a board than it is on skis - especially if your target market has been skiing on the same pair of narrow skis for the last 20 years! many skiiers may never have expereinced the thrill of going in powder cos by all accounts its so much harder and youve got to be so much better on skis. as pam w says - its what tempted her on to a board.

maybe use a tag line like "ever wondered.....?" which is kind of a toned down version of a saying i like "never die wondering" in other words, go for it, dont end up thinking i wish id done this or i wish i done that.
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bredgraves wrote:
Hi, im a Graphic Design student in the UK and im doing a project where i have to target 40 - 50 year old in taking up snowboarding, it will be an advetrtsing campaign, please can you give me some ideas please and also why do you think there are not many 40 -50 year old boards? Please get back to me. Thanks alot! happy boarding!



First, you will have to emphasise the SIMPLICITY of snowboarding.

Snowboards only have 2 edges and no poles. Unlike skiing, where you have 4 edges and 2 poles.

Snowboards are lighter and nimbler than ever before. You can be an advanced boarder in just 4 or 5 weeks. It can be a very short learning curve.

Boarding is much easier than many people think. That is why kids dress it up in fancy words like 'grind' or 'sick', in order to make it sound tougher than it really is.

Second, you will need to focus on DEMOGRAPHICS.

Rich people in developed regions are seeing 'extended youth'. Wealthy people are staying active well into their 50s. As many style magazines say, '30 is the new 20', and '40 is the new 30'.

Finally, it is no surprise that 40-somethings have limited uptake in snowboarding. They are often among the last segments to adopt new technology. For example, 20-somethings pioneered the use of iPods a few years ago. Now, every old duffer has one.

In summary, your campaign should focus on the simplicity of snowboarding. You should target rich, educated professionals.

Good luck.
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Whitegold, What a patronising tosser!
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Whitegold, ... and be sure to adopt an appropriate tone of voice for the target audience/readership? wink
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Whitegold, Interesting . . . with a stunning display of crass blinkered vision and less than subtle rhetoric, you've managed to p¡ss-off this 50+ year old snowboarder. Evil or Very Mad
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Whitegold, great piece... proved one thing to me...............


you are a total lady's front bottom!!!

i sure hope i dont meet you on the slopes
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why wont it let me say a word like T W A T????


stipid swearing filter
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Easy go peeps! Although terms like 'duffer' don't go down well, I think he/she was trying to be objective. Certainly flawed thinking given that snowboarding is certainly out of the 'early adopter' profile and new technology has a particularly high take up in the demographics he/she describes, but no need for flaming!

Whitegold, back to the market segmentation board methinks Laughing
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errr Troll anyone?
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