How Atomic Skis Is Changing the Way It Markets to Women

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I’m sitting in a meeting room at Atomic’s global headquarters in the quaint village of Altenmarkt, Austria, and the women in the room—Christina Hofinger and Karoline Schindlegger, both of whom work in the ski brand’s marketing department—are discussing a very specific question: Should they be done with #sheskis, Atomic’s women’s specific marketing campaign that’s been around since 2015? I’ve come to the Austrian Alps to get a behind-the-scenes look at how this old-school, European-based heritage ski brand is evolving its messaging to make inclusivity something preached and practiced.

Hofinger and Schindlegger, with help from their North American colleague Hannah Fleming, conducted extensive market research, interviewing a general audience and in-house employees on their thoughts on the #sheskis women’s initiative. The sentiment amongst those surveyed was nearly universal: Women don’t want to be alienated. They want to feel included and seen. So why have a marketing strategy that separates them from men?

“What we found in these interviews is that the campaign started with good intentions to increase awareness, but as society has moved in a direction of inclusiveness, we as a brand should be doing the same,” Hofinger says. “As female skiers, we are now sitting at the same table as everyone—not in a separate room.”

Similar women’s specific campaigns and initiatives have persisted at other ski brands over the years, too, like Blizzard’s still-popular Women to Women project, which launched in 2016 and aims to connect and inspire its female customers. Elan has its W Studio, a women’s research and development team that’s been part of the brand for over 15 years. K2’s Women’s Alliance, a group of all-women industry insiders who participate in focus groups and give product feedback, has been around for decades. The concept behind these campaigns is similar: Don’t ignore that women make up 40 percent of the ski market. Speak to them directly.

At Atomic, #sheskis has mostly been a social media hashtag for the brand and its athletes and ambassadors to address the female customer base. The campaign has worked to elevate the brand’s athletes and showcase women’s products, but it’s fallen short in other ways. Though the brand’s social media following has grown since the launch of #sheskis, the percentage of women followers hasn’t increased. “Many of the women we interviewed said we should integrate and not separate,” Hofinger adds. “A lot of athletes and employees said that they don’t want to be confined to this #sheskis box.”

At the end of the meeting in Austria, it’s clear what the plan should be: Atomic is moving on from #sheskis. Going forward, they’ll stick to their more inclusive “We Are Skiing” slogan as the marketing motto for everyone. The marketing team in Austria also agreed that continued efforts should be made to ensure women maintain equal representation across the brand. But that’s just communication. How the brand—and the ski industry as a whole—approaches women’s specific products is another question entirely.

More and more brands in the ski hardgoods industry are throwing out the notion of separating skis by gender. Why not offer a wide range of gender-neutral skis—in varying lengths, constructions, and graphics for different styles, abilities, and body types—that anyone can use? Gender labels on gear at this point can feel outdated and pointless, a sales and marketing tactic more than anything else. Skis, in particular, are best chosen based on your body weight, height, and ski preferences, and those factors vary widely, regardless of whether you identify as male or female.

This is why American startups like Season Equipment, which launched in 2021, and Peak Skis, which launched in 2022, don’t offer men’s and women’s models; they have skis for everyone in a range of lengths and widths. Fischer’s revamped Ranger line, launched in fall 2022, comes in a wider-than-before span of lengths to accommodate us all, with no gender identification. “My experience over the years is that a lot of skis had different topsheets but were the same product, marketed as women’s skis,” says Eric Pollard, cofounder of Season Equipment, which identifies their five ski models as gender inclusive. “The differences between men’s and women’s models were so minute. It was just a matter of marketing.”

The earliest women’s specific skis date back to the 1980s. By the early 2000s, most major ski brands had women’s models, with slight tweaks like a more forward mounting position for the bindings to accommodate different body positioning. The pink-it-and-shrink-it movement followed. Brands made skis shorter, lighter, and easier to turn, then plastered them with girly graphics. Women’s equality? Not exactly, but at least ski manufacturers recognized that nearly half the ski market were women who wanted something unique.

Since then, times have changed significantly, and some made-for-women products have truly altered how women approach the sport. For years, Blizzard’s Black Pearl ski, designed for women, was the number one selling ski—across men’s and women’s models. We’ve also seen an uptick in women’s ski models designed for the big-mountain, powder-chasing set. Skis like the Nordica Santa Ana, Line Pandora, and Moment Sierra have proven to be commercial success stories. But still, the question remains: Can we do away with gendered ski models?

The answer, resoundingly: Not yet. Most retailers and sales teams agree that women’s specific skis are still relevant. “Some say that we shouldn’t make any difference between male and female skis. At the same time, we also get feedback that there is a female buying group that wants to have women’s specific skis,” Herbert Buchsteiner, vice president of product creation at Atomic, told me at the brand’s office in Austria. “If you ask the retailer, they want to have the possibility to cluster and separate the ski wall. Some retailers build up their wall based on brands; other shops organize the ski wall based on unisex or female skis. There are different preferences and perspectives.”

With skis made for carving groomers, the women’s models tend to be built with a unique construction. With wider skis, there is less difference between the women’s skis and the rest of the line. “The primary difference between Atomic’s Maven and the Maverick skis lies in the core construction, where the ratio of ash to poplar varies,” says Maria Pichler, a ski product manager at Atomic and one of few women on the product development side of the brand. “But still, women come into a shop and they expect to find women’s skis.”

Atomic conducted a women’s focus group at three locations around North America in December 2023 to test next year’s women’s Maven all-mountain collection, getting on-snow feedback on new products from a range of women. Then, in late January, Atomic debuted a brand new Maven 103—a wider, 103mm underfoot model in the Maven collection. (I skied the Maven 103 for a full day in Austria; it was fun and surfy in pow and hard-charging and stable on groomers.) It’ll be out in limited quantities this winter, then available at widespread retail starting in fall 2024. That ski is offered in more length options than previously available in women’s models, ranging from 156 to 178 cm, to accommodate different needs. All of this is part of Atomic’s new initiative: Give women many options and make sure everyone feels seen, heard, and included.

In March, Atomic is also unveiling a limited athlete-only edition of a women’s Maven 115, an even wider ski at 115mm in the waist, designed with help from 2023 Freeride World Tour champion Justine Dufour-Lapointe. (That ski won’t yet be commercially available.) But when they announce it, you won’t find the brand tagging it with #sheskis.