PR folks have a serious weakness for superlatives.
This new widget is the lightest, fastest, bestest (this truthfully is a word. A super superlative the best of the best!). It is quite silly, really. We’ve joked in our office of creating a new product release template structured in a Mad Libs format to fill in the superlative gaps for a press release.
Yet there also lurks true awesomeness (also a rarely used word defined as: an unmeasurable amount of awesomenimity). Smart people are creating solutions to problems and true innovation occurs everyday. What is ideal is when the innovation or launch of a new product or company correlates with trends that have macro or societal relevance.
Which brings us to AvaTech. Avatech is a start up that came out of MIT. The Founder and CEO, Brint Markle, had a close friend get caught in a slide (he survived). In processing the situation Brint observed that all avy gear is basioally triage based, and reactive technology. Thus, AvaTech was founded to design a solution that would give skiers and riders good data to facilitate better decision making and avoid getting caught in an avalanche before it happens.
AvaTech is a proactive solution that quickly and accurately analyzes snowpack and facilitates real-time sharing. Backbone helped launch AvaTech to the media a few weeks ago – and the group is quickly catching attention as it attends the International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW) in Banff this week.
Why has the launch been successful? AvaTech is honestly innovative. Don’t take our superlative laden perspective for it, in a feature article released last week in The Avalanche Review (TAR) considered the leading publication for snow pros and patrollers, Jordy Hendrikx professor of snow science at Montana State says,” “Every so often, new technology comes along in an industry that’s not step change, but orders of magnitude. We’re seeing this with AvaTech today in our industry.”
In the first 5 days of launch, AvaTech received over 25,000 youtube views, organic sharing of the content on Facebook was exceptional, (over 400 shares) as was the coverage on OutsideOnline, Wildsnow, Powder, Backcountry, Freeskier, Transworld, Unofficial Networks, TGR, and TAR. Innovation helps, but an overarching macro trend focusing on safety not just in snow sports but in all gravirty sports in general comes into play as well. As the number of off piste skiers rises, so too does the need for safety products. We’ve seen this with helmets, body armor, as well as an emerging trend for safety products and protocol in the backcountry. The Black Diamond JetForce airbag is a great example. So, while AvaTech’s SP1 is not the lightest, fastest perhaps it is the bestest as it hits the sweet spot of a thoughtfully innovative product, which has been carefully developed and is poised for success and relevance with snow pros, and backcountry enthusiasts alike.
Look for out on the hill this winter!