Case Study
La Plagne 360
La Plagne 360 is an in-house development and one of our most ambitious projects to date. The La Plagne 360 site is the most comprehensive online guide to the French ski resort of La Plagne, featuring 360 and preview videos of all lifts and pistes in this, the world’s 3rd largest and most-visited ski area.
Overview
La Plagne France is the most visited, most popular ski area globally and, taken with Les Arcs, is the world’s 3rd-biggest ski resort. Having spent multiple winter seasons in La Plagne, we recognised an opportunity to build a website fully detailing the resort’s 11 different villages plus all the lifts and pistes. This huge undertaking took over three months to complete – and that was just the video elements of the project.
The La Plagne 360 site features in-depth profiling of all La Plagne’s pistes and lifts as well as immersive 360 videos, preview videos and Googlemaps data. The site also gives a comprehensive information for staying in the resort, including tricks and tips for visitors to make the best of their holiday.
While the popularity of La Plagne clearly indicated we would have a receptive audience, it also represented a considerable challenge in terms of SEO with so many other sites already online. Despite this, through dedicated SEO / marketing, LP360 ranks top five in all our desired search engine keywords and keyphrases.
Scope of work
Deepbluemedia was responsible for all aspects of the Snowboard App website and app design, development, launch and promotion. With our experienced team of designers and developers, we produced every aspect of the job internally, pulling on our extensive development, design and marketing experience.
Our remit included: logo design / producing a Fully Responsive property website / producing an Android app of the site / performing SEO and ASO / video production / social media promotion.
CLIENT:
TYPE:
Full branding & launch
SKILLS:
web, branding, social, video
Responsive website
From the start of the La Plagne 360 build, we were very aware the majority of users would likely use the site on mobile devices. For this reason, we set about building a site that was both quick to load and responsive so it would work on any screen size.
From monitoring our usage stats, this proved to be a very good plan with around 70% of La Plagne 360 users visiting the site on mobile phones. The nature of our content (preview videos, piste and village maps, resort guides, etc) made it almost inevitable that people would use the site on the move.
Dedicated mobile design
La Plagne 360 is the most detailed guide to the French ski resort of La Plagne and was built to a responsive format so that it could be used by skiers and snowboarders on mobile while they’re on the move. Indeed, in many ways, the site actually looks better on mobile than it does on desktop.
While we prioritised the production and format of the site, we were constantly aware of the very competitive market for a site in this sector. Consequently, we also delivered extensive website Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) through the build to ensure La Plagne 360 ranked highly in search engines – in particular, Google.
Icon / logo design
We deliberately produced a plain, striking design for the La Plagne 360 logo. We wanted a clear icon that would stand out on Google search results while also being instantly recognisable through social media and our associated marketing content.
The use of a red background marries with La Plagne’s famous red bobble hat logo while the simple LP refers to the resort’s name. This stripped-down logo was also very effective for contrasting with the snow background of our video and images.
Web marketing / SEO
As the world’s most popular ski area, the online market for La Plagne websites was already hotly-contested. However, for the LaPlagne360 site to succeed, we were very aware we would have to break into this realm and achieve high-ranking – especially on Google.
Using a variety of tried and tested techniques – everything from text, graphic and site optimisation to backlinks, highly specific content, detailed competitor ranking analysis and social media – we successfully propelled the La Plagne 360 site to first page ranking under all our required search criteria.
La Plagne 360
Marketing videos
We were very aware that to stand any chance of breaking into such a hotly-contested marketplace, video and social marketing were going to be key to grab attention and retain a userbase. Consequently we made a range of highly engaging edits to promote the La Plagne 360 site.
launch edit
This short promotional advert encapsulates the entire La Plagne 360 site and its services. By keeping to a very short format, we were able to sum up the key advantages of using the site for everything from holiday bookings to lessons, hire and finding the best bars and restaurants.
The edit proved a huge success and immediately increased our userbase and site footfall. It was used very successfully across all the major social channels.
guide to the winter
A major part of the La Plagne 360 site was to advise users on the best times to visit the resort – and the best areas to visit. To help bolster our reputation as a learned, informative service we produced this video showing typical conditions in La Plagne at different times through the season.
This video was an amalgamation of edits shot through four years spent in the resort and did a great job of showing the benefits of visiting at different times.
the best of la plagne in a day
With five years spent in La Plagne, we had a better handle than most on the best places to ski and snowboard.
We made this video to show a route around the resort – possible to complete in a day by even the most timid beginner skier or snowboarder – to let them see the best of La Plagne in a day. It was a huge success across all social media channels.
Google earth la plagne from the air
Using Google Earth, we produced this animation to give a 3D tour of La Plagne / Les Arcs / Paradiski from the air. This video gives a good representation of the various resorts in Paradiski in a way that would be impossible to envisage with just 2D piste maps.
best blue pistes in champagny
The vast majority of skiers and snowboarders are of an intermediate level so we produced a series of videos showing the best blue (intermediate) pistes across various sectors in La Plagne.
This video comes complete with a downloadable piste map so viewers could follow a route to see the best runs suited to their ability.
