Rebuilding a freeride brand in the US market.
- Client
- Fischer Sports
- Role
- Marketing Manager → Marketing Director, US
The situation
When I joined Fischer in 2018, the Ranger line had a problem that didn't show up in the product. Austria was building good freeride skis. The graphics, athlete program, and marketing around them weren't translating. To US freeride consumers, Fischer still read as a race brand — and Ranger sat underground, even among the people it was built for.
The gap wasn't quality. It was cultural. Fischer needed to feel relevant to a North American freeride audience that wasn't seeing the line as theirs.
The bet
Skew younger, fast, with low-budget bets where the upside was asymmetric.
The Ranger Free boot was already getting attention from the right corners. The Out of Bounds Podcast — a young, credible show with an audience that mapped exactly to the customer Fischer needed — was excited about the boot but unsponsored. I sponsored the podcast before any other ski brand saw what it was. Cost was low. Risk was low. Reach into the right audience was high.
Athlete strategy followed the same logic. Leveraging Fischer's roster — Troy Murphy, Sophia Schwartz, KC Deane, Brody Leven, Kyle Smaine — I built a program that skewed the brand's voice a generation younger. Each athlete brought a different audience pocket (big mountain, freestyle, all-mountain pro, ski mountaineering, Olympic freestyle), and together they told US freeride skiers that Fischer was for them.
Most of these moves were placed in the first 18 months, before COVID. My boss trusted the strategy. Austria was skeptical, but the budgets were small enough that the conversation stayed productive.
What changed
Ranger started showing up in the right media, in the right conversations, with the right people. The awards followed: SKI Magazine Best in Test for the My Ranger 96 TI (2019) and the Ranger 102 FR (2021), Backcountry Magazine Editor's Choice across multiple years, Blister Recommended honors across the line. The RC ONE 86 GT took Gear of the Year and the cover of SKI Magazine's Gear Guide.
During COVID I moved deeper into GTM and product development for the relaunched Ranger line, driving a content campaign built on behind-the-scenes and product-highlight video that spoke directly to the freeride audience. Athletes like Kyle Smaine amplified the story in a way no campaign could have manufactured.
The result
Today, the Ranger 102 is Fischer's #1 selling ski in the US — both units and revenue — every year. Total Ranger sales have doubled. What started as cultural translation became the strongest commercial line in the US business.