In an effort boost its Facebook fan base, K2 Skis, one of the leading manufacturers of skis, has redirected the company’s entire website to Facebook. By becoming a fan of the company’s Facebook Page you will be able to view next season’s gear within the Page. This is the first time that we’ve ever seen a company shut down their corporate site as part of a promotion. So far though, the promotion doesn’t appear to be driving a significant number of new fan installs.
According to our internal page metrics, k2 Skis has been gaining 100 to 200 fans per day for the past couple weeks and they’ve continued at that pace with this new promotion. Given that the promotion just started we’ll have to wait and see how this performs. It’s definitely creative to say the least. For k2, the number of skis sold in the middle of the summer probably isn’t that high which is why shutting down the site makes sense.
Think about what would happen if Apple shut down their corporate site though. Yes, it would be a great marketing stunt, however the company would probably loose tens of millions of dollars, if not more. If you want to see the k2 Skis marketing campaign for yourself, check out the company’s website. Also feel free to become a fan of the company’s Page.
The goal isn’t to gain fans - it is to reward K2’s Facebook friends with an exclusive preview of 2010-11 skis for 2 weeks prior to launching the new website to the public. K2 sells the vast majority of its products through local retail shops so there is no money lost in shutting down the 2009-10 site.
I wonder if it’s geotargeted to the northern hemisphere. I don’t know much about the market for ski equipment in South America, but I’d imagine they’d want to show their traditional winter-focused site to the Latin American market.