Hart Skis Recovering From a Rocky Downhill
Ask a skier older than 30 about Hart skis, and he may get a nostalgic look, fondly remembering the brand that Suzy Chaffee rode to an Olympic medal.
Then he might ask: “Is Hart still around?”
Not only is it still around, but Brent Wennberg, chief executive and president of United Sports Group, which now owns Hart Ski Co., wants the world to know that Hart is working to reclaim its reputation as the top maker of freestyle skis.
Helped in part by Chaffee, the captain of the 1968 U.S. women’s Olympic ski team and the world freestyle champion from 1971-73, Hart skis were a dominant force in the market in the 1960s and into the 1970s.
But the company, founded in a St. Paul carpentry shop, began a long downward slide after it was sold to the massive Beatrice Foods conglomerate in 1969.
Wennberg and industry experts said Beatrice allowed the brand to languish in the 1980s and failed to invest in new designs and technology. The company lost market share until it was bought in April for an undisclosed amount by United Sports Group, an investment group led by real estate developer George Sherman.
Despite the Midwestern roots of Hart, based in this Twin Cities suburb, the brand is best known on the East Coast. Wennberg would not discuss specifics for the privately held company but said Hart has about 1% of the U.S. market. The company would like to have 5%, and it is targeting skiers between 18 and 25, Wennberg said.
To attract them, Hart introduced a mostly new product line and hired Minneapolis-based Fallon McElligott to develop an aggressive marketing strategy. The premise of the company’s “Weird DNA” campaign is that only a small part of the population does the kind of free skiing that Hart’s products represent. The ads use a logo of two skis curved into a DNA-like double helix and a photograph of a sperm approaching an egg on bright red skis.
“We are a niche brand; we’re not going to compete with Salomon and Adidas,” Wennberg said. “The only way this will work is if we stay in the pro shops and with ski specialty shops.”
Wennberg figures he has about eight or 10 competitors for the specialty market, with room only for four. While the other companies focus on racing skis, Wennberg is trying to capitalize on Hart’s reputation as a freestyle ski--used for moguls, ski ballet and aerial maneuvers--starting with the Javelin model.
“The free skiing idea got started with the Javelin in the 1960s. There was some pretty good strategic planning in deciding to focus on freestyle [back then],” Wennberg said.
The distinctive Javelin is easily recognized by its black center stripe with a white border. It was one of the first metal skis designed for freestyle and was enormously popular, becoming Hart’s signature ski.
Hart still sponsors a number of competitive freestyle skiers, including Liz McIntyre, who won the World Freestyle Championship for mogul skiing in December. McIntyre also won a silver medal at the 1994 Olympics on Hart’s F17 skis.
“I am very pleased with the way they ski,” said Daniel Pinewski, a ski coach and owner of Pinewski’s Ski Shop in the Minneapolis suburb of Anoka. Pinewski says that this year the skis have competitive prices and technology.
Trying to catch up with the competition, Hart introduced a line of hourglass shaped skis this season that are used for racing or recreational skiing. The skis are the newest trend in the industry because they make turning easier and faster.
Hart skis are also performing well in product tests by leading industry magazines. The reworked Javelin made Top 10 lists in the October 1997 issue of Skiing magazine and the F17 continues to be the best freestyle ski, according to recent issues of Snow Country, Sport Ski 1 and Ski magazine.
The company is trying to establish itself in the snowboard market as well, Wennberg said. Hart boards have been made available to professionals, with the hope of making the boards commercially in coming years.
The company is also scrambling to make Hart-brand snow skates available in as many markets as possible. The extra-short skis are designed to appeal to in-line skaters, an emerging winter sports market.
Hart is the only brand owned by United Sports Group, though Wennberg says the company wants to add more products. But in the meantime, Wennberg has set himself a difficult task: “We want to demonstrate that we have a world-class product and remind people of that.”
