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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Industry Vet John Clifford Back In The Saddle; 'Ski Industry Must Innovate, Not Just Tweak'By Craig Altschul  Clifford's ski industry career began at age 14 in the rental shop at Bradford Ski Area in Western Mass., then rolled through 25 years marketing Killington, the late American Skiing Company, and Ski Industries America. He has been Vice President for Centex Homes since 2002, a developer doing $10 billion in business during the height of the housing boom. Clifford was lured away from SIA by an executive recruiter to create the Centex Hospitality Group as the club and property management division of the company. "I've had always wondered what it would be like to work for a large corporation, so I took the opportunity to find out," he told The Industry Report from his new office in Orlando. "Besides, my mother kept telling me I should get a real job." Why Orlando? The Central Florida city has become the hub of numerous leading players in the resort industry, including Marriott, Hilton, Wyndam, CNL, and the Mouse among others. Centex deep-sixed the new division, acting decisively as the housing industry tanked. Clifford's division had developed 11 new second home properties from Hawaii to Loon Mountain, N.H. "It was pretty intense," he said. He's hung a new shingle on his office door that reads "JW Clifford, Integrated Marketing Services & Consulting." He is jumping back into the industry that has been in his blood for so much of his career, already working on projects with several industry-leading organizations. You can find his Web site at http://www.jwclifford.com. Or, call (407) 697-9700. The marketing world that Clifford and the legendary Foster Chandler led at Killington during the S.K.I. ownership of Preston Leete Smith – "The Spirit Of Alpine Skiing" – has changed dramatically, though it can certainly be argued that the "spirit" of those days has not. "Marketing back then was all about reaching 25-year-olds and then following those baby boomers along as they started to grow their own families," Clifford said. "The eighties were probably the halcyon years – certainly the most exciting – as the U.S. economy was prosperous and so were the boomers' careers." He said the marketing thrusts were aimed at ski vacations, and attracting more newbies with significant learn-to-ski programs (SKI Magazine launched its national SKIwee program during that period, for example). The opportunity existed for industry-wide cooperatives and some early ties were made with companies such as Pepsi and Rossignol. Then, there was the short-lived merger of SIA and NSAA. "But, everything changed in the world of marketing in the late 1990s as Internet browsers became functional," Clifford says. "All of a sudden we needed far more sophisticated systems to track customers and build databases." SIA and Dave Ingemie, its president, jumped on that thought by creating a separate company called Customers First that did just that. Clifford was named president and developed it for two years before being recruited by Centex. SIA kept the company going for another year. "I quickly discovered some major differences between how a company as large as Centex focuses its marketing and how the ski industry has operated through the years," Clifford says. "The most obvious difference was in the large amount of money spent in marketing, but what was very interesting to me was that even seemingly small decisions made in the housing industry could have a surprisingly big impact. That's why Centex had such a focus on strategic analysis. "Industries like housing start and end projects. Companies have to constantly reinvent themselves. New home layouts are already in the works as current ones go on the market, even in the same developments. There is a far deeper understanding of consumer demand factors. These companies can turn on a dime when they need to do so." Clifford says "The ski industry has generally taken a more analytical approach. So we'd generally just tweak things from year to year to keep customers interested. "Looking back on the seventies, there was high unemployment, around 10 percent as I recall, so one tweak we all made, for example, was trying to lure people who weren't working to fill up some unused inventory time – midweek. We tapped into their available time. "That, has of course, changed and individual and family time became the biggest barrier to ski trips. Centex and the other major housing developers could react to environmental changes with lightning speed. Every one of Centex's divisions today have top flight strategic marketing analysts recruited from other Fortune 500 companies. "The idea for my new company comes from the fact that today's – and certainly tomorrow's – mountain resort marketing will depend on entirely new forms of sophisticated marketing efforts that require the technology resources of people and systems underneath it. Few resorts can have all of the necessary people on staff or the technology in house to stay ahead of this moving target," he said. JW Clifford Company will rely on tapping into a network of independent associates who have worked together on different high level marketing efforts over the past decade. He believes it's time for a company like this to fill a number of gaps for snow industry companies and other entities. "Resort management must have access to talents that simply didn't exist five years ago." The mountain resort industry today, he suggests, has become relatively stable the past few years. "There has been continuous improvement -- tweaking -- but not much in the way of new initiatives or innovation. "Think of the significant innovations – detachable, high-speed lifts, snowmaking, shaped skis, snowboarding – and those are all way-back-when. "I want my new company to be on the leading edge of innovation, tying in with those who have the foresight to get out there in a difficult market and innovate based on serious strategic data," he said. What It Means: The industry can welcome back one of its real professionals and most likeable long-time leaders. The housing industry downslide may have at least yielded one gain for us. More significantly, it's a good bet we will see Clifford's handprints all over some new ideas in the years to come. « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » |
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