Rollerskiing Is About Being Fit, Great Looking And Overall Cool . Why Industry Fails To Advertize That?!

12May 2019 by DS News Team

Let us state the obvious for an umpteen time: it’s 2019 on the calendar.

The year when success or failure of promoting yourself on social media decides fate of any business. Certainly decides all-important volume of sales. If you’re not cool – it doesn’t matter how technically great your device is.

In other sport industries new brands are virtually created on Instagram and then proceed to capture customers’ imagination – as well as their hard earned cash.


Why in this day and age manufacturers of rollerskis prefer talking about technical aspects of their products rather than selling the “Cool Factor” is beyond us.

But this is not a diss – it’s a guide!

By talking up technical aspects of their wares, rollerski companies often speak to the void. OK, perhaps not the void – but to a few dozens, perhaps hundreds who could really feel and appreciate difference. Few hundred customers on the planet won’t keep any production alive unless it starts charging ridiculous money for perceived exclusivity which might work in high-end music but very unlikely for device for exercise
First rule of social media: Form is more important than substance. You can’t explain tech. details in Insta ( and if you try – nobody would read it anyway). But you can emphasize different shape, color and endorsement. Perhaps, most importantly endorsement – because in the Age of social media people buy what influencers tell them to buy – and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Social media is the cheapest way to show how cool and hip you are as device maker ( if you are). No advertising agents, no media intermediaries – just you, your rollerskis and the message you want to convey.
The real struggle is not between rollerski-makers, but against other, similar sports such as rollerblading and even cycling. Enough of them occupying our i.e. rollerski trails and stealing gullible customers!

So, who does it right?

Well, there are two rollerski makers who are well ahead of the pack when it comes to exploring social media potential.. By coincidence or not, those two also are the most common official sponsors & suppliers to top national teams in both xcskiing and biathlon.

With Norwegian, Swedish and Russian national teams contractually using IDT, the company from Lena probably has close to 95% of world’s best skiers using their rollerskis. But Morten Iversbakken, IDT Sports’ boss, does not stop there. Company’s top models are being developed with a help of two stand-out champions.

And don’t forget this gentleman, world’s most marketable skier ever-ever.

Does it have to be Northug or Klaebo, who, let’s face it, don’t come cheap as influencers?

It sure helps, but no, not really. And here is how.

Marwe is , possibly, the most legacy firm of all – they were around long before the Age of Social media.

Yet the Finnish company is the most pioneering of all in using amplifying power of users of its products.

Alice Canclini might be making first steps in the Italian national team – but when it comes to harnessing power of Instagram a 25 year old is well ahead of the pack! Her nearly 50K subscribers adore every post – and it’s easy to see why. Evidently, Finnish rollerskis help. A lot.

Nour Keyrouz did not win medals at Seefeld-2019 but she sure keeps on winning hearts & minds across the Middle East in the last few years. All the while introducing good citizens of the region to pleasures of rollerskiing.

OK, IDT and Marwe are relative giants with tens of thousands of pairs produced annually and advertizing budgets to spend. What about smaller producers who need to be more spendthrift ?

Here are some good examples. Old marketing adage still holds true: show the people behind products. Especially when so handsome as that Jorge Vidal, founder of Bones Sport

Oh, and producing visual tie-ups like this one doesn’t hurt either.

Across the Pond the biggest problem Nordic skiing is fighting is that image of an old man in self-knitted sweater shuffling in a forest on his home-tarred planks. Canadian rollerski maker Rundle seems to be well aware of that – and is subtly pushing out that daredevil notion that is bull’s eye of today’s branding for young people. Kids, you don’t want to be doing for this gent in picture does yourselves – you just want to be image-associated with those who do!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxARQ3hBwX3/

Clayton Keim, founder of RollerskiShop.com that produces Pursuit rollerskis in Minnesota, US is his own best model & ambassador. His skis are magnet for the eye anyway with that inimitable steam-punk design of theirs – one just has to take it out to potential crowd. Something that Clayton does with ever present vigor fitting the Instagram era.

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