Overview

Bringing a New Solution to the Winter Sports Industry With Snowskates

Tomsen Sports is a company that emerged as a revival of SledDogs — a previous producer and B2B retailer of Snowskates. Snowskates are a relatively new product, with limited marketing efforts, resulting in low brand awareness. SledDogs had a successful run in the ’90s, but Tomsen aimed to rebrand and start anew in January 2021. They sought to develop a new series of Snowskates with a much shorter timeline, aiming for market entry in the 2021-2022 winter season — a timeline that was ultimately achieved.

Brief

The Tomsen team had an ambitious goal to dramatically reduce the development timeline for their new Snowskates lineup. They aimed to shorten the typical 24 to 36 month development process for ski boots to less than 8 months so as to ensure market entry in the 2021-2022 winter season. This meant that the entire project, from introduction to the start of final prototyping, had to be completed in just 3 months, an exceptionally challenging task that was eventually successfully completed.

The project involved designing four new Snowskating models: three for retail and one for rental, with four sizes per model. Although some preliminary research had begun on the product’s market and design, its potential was limited due to the market’s size and a lack of information. Additionally, a crucial step in understanding the product itself was hindered by time constraints and a shortage of available open slopes for testing.

Research-Informed Design Direction

Lack of comprehensive user profiles and market research initially impacted the conceptual design phase. To expedite the project, discussions were held with past users, distributors, and Tomsen board members. Their insights guided the development of design values aligned with the brand’s Scandinavian roots, which perfectly complemented the requirements for a contemporary and innovative winter sports product.

Design Values

Drawing inspiration from Tomsen’s Norwegian heritage, the Snowskates’ design had to embody simplicity, user-friendliness, speed control, sleek forms, and convey a unique and distinct identity within the Snowskating market, setting it apart from traditional ski or snowboard boots.

2.1.

Design Development

• Detailed Design
• Prototyping and Testing
• Materials and Manufacturing Considerations

Boot Modelling Difficulty

The main body of the Snowskates is brought to life using a multitude of connected, complex curvature-matching surfaces. This construction methodology — in matters of 3D CAD standards — is considered qualitative due to the high grade of smoothness and seamless continuity. This was a task of increased difficulty, due to the overall shape of the construction itself as it was meant to resemble an uninterrupted surface. Additionally, the requirement for proper functionality constrained the errors and/or possibilities of surface cloud point positioning in the 3D space.

Increasing Performance

The front part of the base increased in length and introduced a less-aggressive surface curvature to help satisfy a better ride comfort due to its softer contact with the snow. A supportive and stable back-side was created with the use of rounded edges, which dramatically impact the braking experience of riders. The integration of stainless steel inserts to the sides of the base enables riders to hockey stop (break using the lateral edges of the base).

The weight of all sub-assembly parts was taken into consideration regarding material cost and rider comfort. Due to safety reasons, the boot shell used thicker inner walls, which were eventually made thinner after prototyping, due to weight reduction.

Delicate Attention to Details

Fine, line extrusions form a crossing loop, which lies upon the boot shell and the cuff, derived from the cross of the Norwegian flag. This refined detail ends its loop in a functional way as a velcro strap holder and a spoiler-resembling connection to the base; conveying a more streamlined form in the factor of aerodynamics, and a more unified appearance. The velcro strap holder, uses an inner wall which reduces assembly time and eliminates the use of screws.

Cutting Costs, Keeping Quality

Most ski and snowboard producers use ready-made buckles (specifically made for ski and snowboard boots) to cut down production time and costs. Similarly, Tomsen Snowskates use the same buckle systems found on ski and snowboard boots by Atomic, Head, K2, and other top brands. The velcro strap uses a meticulously designed, soft, plastic strap with refined patterns made up of Tomsen symbols, accompanied by the Tomsen combination mark logotype. To differentiate the models from one another, detail elements are lessened at the BTS5, to eliminate the sense of extravagance.

The weight of all sub-assembly parts was taken into consideration regarding material cost and rider comfort. Due to safety reasons, the boot shell used thicker inner walls, which were eventually made thinner after prototyping, due to weight reduction.

Converting Leads

To its core, the website’s primary goal is to convert leads to sales. This was satisfied through properly presenting the product, explanatory content on the practice of the sport, and other UX and UI design elements that aimed to support a comforting browsing experience. Proving to be a valued decision, the website’s performance increased in matters of browsing time and targeted actions completed and satisfied a tested group of newcomers to the sport.

Performance Growth

Due to launching the website in-season, A/B testing efforts were delayed, however, its performance showed growth in both website performance and digital marketing efforts.

The supply of visual content was a complex task that required constant spending on photoshoot sessions on mountain slopes. To properly manage content, the implementation of 3D visuals became a necessity, to not increase spending, and to meet time constraints. Static images and animations were rendered through the use of KeyShot and other software, to reach desirable and realistic results. Their creation was used primarily to describe and explain the Snowskates’ features and technical qualities.

Ranking First With SEO

Establishing targeted keywords including “Snowskates”; “skates on snow”, and “how to snowskate” were the minimum requirements to support organic growth. As a consequence, in a matter of days, the website showed growth in page ranking, finally reaching the top result in Google SERPs. within a week. This proved highly valuable, as the growth of incoming organic traffic skyrocketed, showing a constant increase for months after the website’s launch.

5.1.

Brand Monitoring & Management

• Brand Tracking
• Crisis Management
• Brand Evolution
• Brand Loyalty and Advocacy

The start-up aspect of Tomsen could heavily impact its market entry. In collaboration with high-profile marketing specialists, a digital marketing strategy was formed, with a substantial focus on social media ads. This was the best possible action to be taken in regards to time, ROI, and creating demand in the B2C channels.

Welcoming the Newbies, Guiding the Pros

The brand itself had to connect and respond to the needs of newcomers and beginners to the sport, to convert their interest to purchases. To form those leads, growth in awareness was the first step to be driven by attention-grabbing visual ads. The core marketing funnel — designed using only digital marketing actions in mind — performed well for a certain number of users, however, due to users lacking the possibility of product testing on a slope, it resulted in many lost leads. The lack of reviews, online content of the product in action, brand history, and more aspects, was observed to be the main deciding factor that turned leads away.

Brand Design = Brand Trust = Win

Brand trust was satisfactory for many customers via the use of proper branding and design attributes from website performance to social media ads and posts. Design continuity and coherency were a must to satisfy the global aspect of Tomsen. Content management required that all branded assets had to be verified previous to their distribution and sharing.

The weight of all sub-assembly parts was taken into consideration regarding material cost and rider comfort. Due to safety reasons, the boot shell used thicker inner walls, which were eventually made thinner after prototyping, due to weight reduction.