Online Habits of Snow Lovers

Kantar Media Insights into the profile of Ski and Snowboarders

Snow sports are becoming slightly more mass market due to the increased visibility of ski and snowboard shows and events, such as Freeze festival. Additionally, London hosts an indoor ski and snowboard show which is now in its 40th year, pulling in large crowds.

In Britain, 351,000 people have skied in the last year. The number for snowboarders is much smaller at 123,000. Though both groups of snow devotees are generally younger adults, there is an age disparity when looking beyond the under 24’s. 33% of snowboarders are aged 25-34, whereas skiers tend to be slightly older, being 54% more likely to be in the 45-54 age bracket (whilst snowboarders are 57% less likely to be in this age range). Marketers would do well to take this age disparity into account when targeting.

There is perhaps a generational difference at play here, with skiing being adopted long before snowboarding became as popular as it is today. Due to the expensive nature of winter snow sports, it is perhaps no surprise that both groups are predominantly within the AB social grades. However, a higher proportion of skiers belong to the highest social grade A than boarders (18%, compared to only 7% of boarders. Perhaps this is due to skiers being slightly older and possibly having more disposable income than their snowboarding counterparts.

When looking at how often these snow-mad groups are online, it is those who ski that go online more often, with 80% of skiers and 67% of boarders accessing the internet more than once a day. This group of winter sports fanatics are many a marketer’s dream, as they are regular online purchasers. Snowboarders are more than twice as likely as the average internet user to purchase online about once a week. Similarly, those who ski are three times as likely to do the same. TGI reveals that on average in the last six months snowboarders have spent £383 online, which is £60 more than skiers. If targeted in the right way, this group of consumers could become loyal and regular customers.

Additionally, both groups are more likely to regularly access the internet through their tablets. Those who ski are nearly three times more likely to access the internet through their tablets, with snowboarders twice as likely. 23% of those who ski regularly purchase holidays and travel online, making them nearly three times more likely than the average internet user to do so. Though snowboarders regularly purchase holidays and travel online, they are slightly more inclined to purchase airline tickets, over five times more likely to do so than the average internet user.

By using TGI Clickstream, which includes metered data of website visitation, we can examine the exact websites these snow enthusiasts visit and how much time they spend on them. When analysing their social media behaviour, skiers are 32% more likely than the average internet user to have used Twitter in the last four weeks, whilst snowboarders are only 18% more likely to have done so. However, when looking at these groups’ average time on site in the last four weeks, snowboarders actually spend longer than skiers on Twitter, (52 minutes vs 43 minutes for skiers).

We could go further still with Kantar Media’s Ad-Vantage study which takes our detailed TGI-defined target and sources the exact cookies for reaching them efficiently online.

Though perhaps these winter sports fanatics don’t particularly engage with newspapers in their traditional form, 41% of skiers regularly visit newspaper sites online. This is compared to only 13% of all internet users who do the same. Unsurprisingly, both skiers and boarders regularly visit sports sites (36% and 40% respectively). Looking at the media habits of skiers, TGI reveals they are particularly likely to be amongst the highest fifth of cinema goers, 43% are, making them three times more likely to be so than the average adult.

TGI reveals that those who ski are particularly likely to prefer to watch adventure films in the cinema, with 16% of them doing so. Watching films in 3D also seems to be a popular past time for skiers, as they are more than twice as likely to have seen this type of film. Conversely, snowboarders are twice as likely as the average adult to be amongst the heaviest fifth of outdoor media consumers. 23% of these snowboard lovers have seen advertising at an airport in the last week, making them 93% more likely than the average adult to encounter this type of marketing. These snow enthusiasts are a valuable audience for marketers to target, especially at this time of year when many consumers book last minute winter breaks.

There are, however, some subtle but significant differences between those who prefer to ski and those who favour snowboarding.

Marketers should be conscious to maximise the efficiency of their targeting by understanding the similarities and variance between the two groups.

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