Canadian ski operators may have been reluctant to reintroduce advertising on their chairlifts because of negative experiences in the past, but Adbloc Media, a new Toronto-based media provider, thinks that going after national advertisers is the right formula.

‘Our approach was to get the ski areas signed up before we dig into the advertising side of it,’ says Peter Kobayashi, managing partner, Adbloc. Working since last winter to sign up about 16 resorts across the country, including Lake Louise in Alberta and Mont Tremblant in Quebec, the company offers ad placements on the bar in front of the person seated on a chairlift, and the two bars on the side. While the Adbloc manufacturer is based in New Zealand, the entities are separate and have separate ownership.

Although no brands have signed on yet in Canada, Kobayashi says the New Zealand model was popular among major brands like Mitsubishi and Coke, who even incorporated a text message-based call-to-action component with mobile phones. ‘What’s really attractive to advertisers is some of the interactive campaigns that are run particularly in New Zealand, which you can do if you have the consumer’s attention for six, seven minutes or longer,’ Kobayashi tells MiC. He believes the demographic on the slopes is skewed male, of higher income and aged 25 to 60.

Rate card prices for Adbloc are $9.31/CPM based on packages that are the length of the ski season (16 to 24 weeks). The cost for one resort would start at about $3,000, whereas a national buy in the whole network would begin at about $50,000. Audience is measured according to resorts’ statistics on guests. ‘You can also work out basically how many times on average a skier will use a chairlift. So for example, if at [Mt. St. Louis Moonstone] the average skier is making 15 chairlift runs a day, and you’re typically on a three-seater, you know that they’re going to generate three visual impressions, times fifteen, per ski day,’ he says.

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