Moment/other skis in magazine gear reviews

[davieboot]

I noticed that Moment is in some of the magazines' gear reviews this year (Freeskier and at least one other). There are a couple other indie companies, such as Liberty and Amplid, in there too. However, other companies that are popular around, such as PMGear and Praxis, didn't show. Are those companies that much bigger? Or is it just a matter of companies submitting their skis, and maybe knowing the right people, in order to get a review?

Basically, what does it take for a company to get a ski reviewed in the bigger magazines?

[slaymore_sessions]

It's a matter of the skis not being submitted. Or they just suck.

Edit: Tech Talk.

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

I doubt it has to do with knowing the right people. Pretty sure everyone at Powder knows about PM Gear. I'll take a wild guess that Pat knows "the right people".

[splat]

Yeah, we know the right people, but we don't tweak them for exposure. There's a couple reviews coming out on both sides of the pond from magazines who harrassed us to send them skis. But we're not chasing them down to get reviews. Instead, we're just chillin on a low-level plan that we think will change the way indie skis are marketed in the future. Print is nice, but skis on feet is even more awesome.

[KevinDineen]

For Powder, it comes down to production. If you don't have the ability to produce enough skis for at least 2-3% of our readership, it's difficult to include you in our buyer's guide. With so many small companies these days, if we were to try to include them all, we would have three times as many skis as we currently have, which would mean devoting more pages to gear reviews, and less to actual skiing. Subsequently, if you only make a couple hundred pairs of skis a year, we'd essentially be reviewing something that less than 1% of our readership be able to get their hands on.

[splat]

Whoa, I've been wondering when you were gonna post again, KD, and here ya go posting at the exact same moment as me. weeeiiirrrddd...........

[slaymore_sessions]

Hmmm... So it kind of sounds like it's quantity over quality for Powder? KD, what if the ski truly rails? Wouldn't that create more quantity in the end with a good review and subsequent investment and production? And how was Powder's magic 1% figured out? Not trying to start shit. Just trying to understand how it works.

[PowTron]

For Powder, it comes down to production. If you don't have the ability to produce enough skis for at least 2-3% of our readership, it's difficult to include you in our buyer's guide. With so many small companies these days, if we were to try to include them all, we would have three times as many skis as we currently have, which would mean devoting more pages to gear reviews, and less to actual skiing. Subsequently, if you only make a couple hundred pairs of skis a year, we'd essentially be reviewing something that less than 1% of our readership be able to get their hands on.

You don't review skis in Powder magazine, you simply type info on every ski borrowed out of each manufacturer's info specs and descriptions...

pretty Weak Sauce, IMO

[mitch buchannon]

Hmmm... So it kind of sounds like it's quantity over quality for Powder? KD, what if the ski truly rails? Wouldn't that create more quantity in the end with a good review and subsequent investment and production? And how was Powder's magic 1% figured out? Not trying to start shit. Just trying to understand how it works.

Well the one percent number is probably something like this: (Number of magazines sold via subscriptions or vendors) x .01. That's about 1%, give or take.

I think it sounds like a base quantity required. IF you're going to hype a product, be it marketing or an actual editorial review, you need to have enough product available in the marketplace to please your constituency.

Powder doesn't print all those pretty pictures for free.

[Powow]

Well the one percent number is probably something like this: (Number of magazines sold via subscriptions or vendors) x .01. That's about 1%, give or take.

Thank you for your insightful explanation to how powder comes up with their 1% number.

[mitch buchannon]

I wanted to keep it simple, as somehow the question existed in the first place.

[slaymore_sessions]

Well the one percent number is probably something like this: (Number of magazines sold via subscriptions or vendors) x .01. That's about 1%, give or take.

I think it sounds like a base quantity required. IF you're going to hype a product, be it marketing or an actual editorial review, you need to have enough product available in the marketplace to please your constituency.

Powder doesn't print all those pretty pictures for free.

Thanks bro. That tells me absolutely nothing concerning why they picked 1%. If the product is good, won't that create a demand and more production. It's not Powder that's providing the product, que no?

[skier666]

I'll add that newest Powder is pretty lackluster....

Freeskier's guide is utter garbage...went right into the trash.

[mitch buchannon]

Thanks bro. That tells me absolutely nothing concerning why they picked 1%. If the product is good, won't that create a demand and more production. It's not Powder that's providing the product, que no?

Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I don't really know the effect of something like a 'buyers guide' on the sales of a ski. I think it takes more than that to get the random consumer to trust a new, small-scale producer of something like a ski (expensive, etc). I think the 1% number is actually pretty ambitious.

In Powder's defense, I think it's probably more challenging to stay afloat than a lot of people think. Powder does a pretty good job of not including a 'mountain real estate' section or whatever it is that Ski is paying the bills with. Has the magazine suffered a bit since in the last ten years? Sure. But even if the thing is 25% good content, it's still a leg up on most of the competition.

[XavierD]

for the most part I am pretty sure it has to do with sending the skis to the mag for testing which costs money on both sides of the deal, Pat would have to pay to make an extra pair of skis for each model he wanted tested, buy/scrounge demo bindings, then pay to ship them to the test, and repeat for every ski test he wanted them featured in. For small run ski manufacturers, this can be quite a large percentage of the cost. For this to make sense financially, he would have to make all of that back in increased sales. If only 1% of of the powdermag readership would be interested in buying bros it would probably not be a wise business decision on the part of PM gear. Further more all of these sales would have to mean increased production, and if pmgear is at their production limit this is just a waist of money. Same goes for other small business like Praxis.
Right now I would say moment is much larger then PM gear or praxis, for one they are distributing to shops, and not just selling off of their website. Alot of buyer guide influenced sales come from people who pick up the mag read through it and then when they go to their shop (be it online or in person) they will look for the skis that got the best rating/described as the best for them. So if Praxis or PM gear was to submit skis for testing and they all got 10/10, the likely hood of people buying them would still be lower just because they are not featured in shops (to my knowledge).

[TyWebb]

I was just going through the ski reviews again last night...Powder/Skiing/Freeskier....at first I was disappointed that powder didn't "review" anything, just manufacturer info. But then I read Skiing and remembered how useless 2 sentence mag reviews really are anyway.