ZAG Skis and Tignes have formalised a partnership that goes beyond a mere sponsorship deal. Behind the collaboration between the French brand and the Savoyard resort lies a broader ambition: to transform Tignes into a real-world testing ground for future ZAG skis, to make the products accessible to skiers throughout the season and, ultimately, to develop new products and organise new joint events. A joint interview with Eric Bascle, Managing Director of ZAG Skis, and Alban Hugonnet, Managing Director of Tignes.
Some partnerships begin with market research, an Excel spreadsheet and a long list of potential partners. The partnership between ZAG Skis and Tignes seems to have taken a rather different path.
“We didn’t meet on a dating app,” jokes Eric Bascle. For the head of ZAG, the partnership with Tignes was, first and foremost, a matter of course: when it came to deciding where to further establish the brand’s roots, the resort was “right at the top of the list”. For ZAG, a brand must not merely occupy a communication space: it must also be able to establish itself within a real geographical area that is consistent with its identity.
In Tignes, the approach is similar. Having taken the helm of the resort with the aim of cementing its positioning around three pillars (extreme, authentic and premium), Alban Hugonnet was looking for a French ski brand capable of sharing this culture. ZAG quickly stood out: an independent, French brand with a strong freeride and freestyle identity, but also one whose production proudly bears the ‘Made in France’ label.
Two brands that speak almost the same language
In their respective marketing messages, the words used are not always the same. But the intentions are the same. Whilst Tignes talks about ‘extreme’, ZAG talks about ‘thrills’. The resort’s ‘authentic’ image is countered by ZAG’s more ‘democratic’ approach. And whilst Tignes emphasises its premium status, the brand, for its part, highlights its high standards.
Behind the nuances in terminology, what emerges above all is common ground: freeride skiing, freestyle skiing and a certain conception of the mountains as a space for self-expression. For Eric Bascle, the alliance feels all the more natural given that both organisations are currently redefining their brand platforms and ambitions at the same time.
But the value of the partnership lies precisely where the brand narrative ends. For ZAG and Tignes now want to put this close relationship to the test in practice.
Tignes as an ‘open lab’ for ZAG
This is probably the most interesting part of the project. Tignes does not simply want to become a commercial showcase for ZAG. The resort aims to provide the brand with a permanent testing ground, bringing design, prototyping and real-world use closer together.
Alban Hugonnet uses the term ‘open lab’ directly. The idea is to make the diverse terrain of Tignes available to ZAG so that the brand’s teams can test their prototypes, innovations and technical developments, and then, where appropriate, put these products to the test with a much wider range of users.
For ZAG, this expansion of the snow laboratory is of genuine industrial interest. The brand already has its own prototyping workshop in Chamonix, the ZAG Lab, where future skis are shaped and developed. But in skiing, no amount of modelling can completely replace real-world testing. “A ski is an object, a discipline of sensation,” points out Eric Bascle. A shape may look sound on paper; it still needs to be tested against snow, a slope, speed and real-world conditions.
Tignes offers precisely this diversity. Its long season, the variety of its terrain, its high-altitude conditions and its sporting environment make it, according to the head of ZAG, a location particularly well-suited to the development of future products.
The partnership then takes on a new dimension: ensuring that information flows more quickly between those who design the skis and those who ski on them.
The skier must also be able to play their part in the collaboration
However, ZAG and Tignes do not wish to restrict this trial to engineers or athletes. The partnership will, of course, be visible across the ski area: brand presence, ZAG skis on the feet of some staff members, ambassador activities and the identification of several areas associated with both brands.
But Alban Hugonnet wants to take it a step further. The aim is, in particular, to work with industry partners and partner shops to create an opportunity to try out the skis on a sustainable basis throughout the season, rather than just during a one-off weekend event. “The idea is to go beyond that […] to make people want to try out the skis and to ensure there’s a very straightforward way to access them – not just for a weekend, as other resorts do, but genuinely over the long term throughout the entire season.” This is a significant difference.
Athletes and ambassadors to rekindle the public’s fascination with skiing
The initiative must also draw on several brand ambassadors and Tignes’s unique sporting ecosystem. Eric Bascle specifically mentions Cyril Pierrel, Léo Taillefer (who hails from the neighbouring resort), Thibault Bezard, PG Conrardy, Franck Bernes and Aymeric Cloerec as figures likely to help drive this local initiative, whilst emphasising ZAG’s commitment to strengthening the presence of female brand ambassadors as well.
For its part, Tignes wishes to develop its own circle of ambassadors, extending well beyond the world of skiing alone. Top-level athletes and prominent figures from other disciplines, such as music or culture, could thus help to bring this collaboration to life. The resort already benefits from a unique setting, welcoming numerous sportspeople who come here to train or recharge their batteries, in both summer and winter.
This strategy forms part of a broader vision championed by the two leaders: skiing is not merely a technical product or a question of infrastructure; it is also rooted in the imagination.
“Skiing is, first and foremost, a figment of the imagination”
It is perhaps here that the partnership takes on its most interesting dimension. Eric Bascle believes, in fact, that the current difficulties facing skiing are not merely environmental or economic. They are also, in part, linked to what he describes as a ‘crisis of the imagination’. Skiing had undergone a profound image overhaul in the 2000s, driven by the emergence of new brands, freeskiing, freestyle and new ways of practising the sport. More than twenty years on, this imagination is said to be in need of a fresh boost.
In this regard, Tignes has a unique history. Freestyle, moguls, the X Games, summer camps, freeride, Big Air: the resort has regularly hosted or supported new forms of skiing. Alban Hugonnet now wishes to embrace this heritage more fully, along with the resort’s ability to take directions that sometimes differ from the rest of the market.
According to the director of Tignes, ZAG embodies precisely this spirit. “I see a bit of that in the ZAG ethos. The disruptive side, the freestyle side – I really love all of that.”
The partnership thus becomes one of the first building blocks of a broader strategy: to develop collaborations in Tignes with premium and leading brands, chosen not only for their reputation, but also because they reflect the identity the resort wishes to project.
And in three years’ time?
When the two executives are asked what would make the collaboration a genuine success in three years’ time, their answers already offer a glimpse of the next steps. Alban Hugonnet puts forward a very concrete idea: developing a ZAG × Tignes ski, possibly inspired by the Grande Motte and specifically designed for the ski area. A co-branded model that could encapsulate the collaboration in a product genuinely developed to suit the characteristics of the terrain.
Eric Bascle is also envisaging the creation of an annual event, bringing together freeride and freestyle – two worlds whose boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. But above all, he is setting his sights elsewhere. Success would also mean working together to make skiing more appealing, more accessible and less intimidating once again. “If we can collectively show that skiing is possible, that it’s not that hard, that it’s not that expensive, that it’s responsible and that it’s welcoming […] then we’ll have succeeded in everything. Otherwise, we’re just engaging in PR.”
This sentence probably sums up the nature of the project better than any other. ZAG and Tignes could have announced a traditional partnership between a ski brand and a resort. They seem to want to build something else: a shared space where product development, testing, events, athletes, skiers and ski culture come together. Their aim is far more ambitious than simply displaying two logos side by side: to play their part, on their own scale, in reimagining part of the world of skiing.
