Part I: The Ski-Book Report
Resorts produced some laudable print ads for the major industry mags this past season, along with some utter dreck. But before I name names, it’s important to note that this season’s campaigns were marked not so much by a total lack of creativity or imagination as a partial lack of, well, ads.

The rich variety of marketing options makes the jobs of marketing gurus nationwide a little more complicated. But it has also taught them to focus on a specific demographic rather than employing the old shotgun approach to selling themselves. Resorts are shying away from image ads designed to reinforce a brand, instead favoring calls to action or ads for specific events or programs, such as ski school. While this is understandable and even perhaps effective, it may contribute to an overall lack of brand awareness.

But I digress. The range of aims in this year’s ads suits them to an Academy Awards-style suite of citations. The winners and losers are:


1. Best use of imagery that plays to a strength: Vail, thankfully, went back to the basics this season by ditching the annoying “It’s no Vail” campaign and selling its strength—more terrain than virtually anyone else. Its “seven reasons” ad features beautiful photography of its Back Bowls and reminds viewers of its perennial Ski Magazine No. 1 ranking. When you’ve got the goods, why mess around?

Runner-up: Whistler’s “Who says size doesn’t matter?” ads actually outdo Vail because of the sheer drama of Canada’s Coast Mountains. But Vail’s mapping out of the terrain and clever reference to its top ranking is more effective.

2. Worst use of imagery that underscores a weakness: Keystone’s “pure simple pleasure” ad did a good job of delivering the news of its Independence Bowl expansion, but used terrible imagery to do so—the powder shot is riddled with rocks, which underscores the new area’s rep for being windswept and variable.

Runner-up: Big Sky’s “Behold” campaign. As one rider who’s been there put it to me: “With a mountain as dope as Lone Peak, why animate?” Personally, I kind of liked the Zen feeling, but I understand his point.

3. Best delivery of a clear, strong message: Mammoth’s “ting­ling feeling” ads. This campaign also makes use of dramatic imagery, but the verbiage (“The tingling feeling is not from the cold”) makes this the season’s best visceral-reaction piece.

4. Worst use of muddled, head-scratching messaging: Breckenridge chose to deliver its big news this season, further expansion of its expert terrain, by overusing creative white space. Granted, it gets you to take a closer look, but tiny photos of the mountain with another shot of the terrain expansion duct-taped on is a major downplaying faux pas.

Runner-up: The Canyons earns points for boldness and creativity with its doll campaign, but the one featuring a tiny action figure on skis standing atop a ridge with some full-sized human skiers tempted me to bestow a Dork Award. “Nothing had ever made him feel this alive before,” reads the copy. Maybe it appealed to someone, but my reaction was a simple “Huh?”

5. Smartest, slickest, classiest verbiage award: Whistler’s “Music to your ears” ad touting its new Symphony Express lift coupled stellar photography with clean, classy copy. And any time a resort can work in the phrase “orchestral maneuver” it deserves an award.

Runner-up: Deer Valley’s “Come together” campaign used illustration (and black and white) to perfection. Plus, the shadow of three skiers merging to form a deer and the simple, classy tagline say it all. Placed in Ski, Deer Valley clearly knows its market and how to reach it with the right branding.

Honorable mention: The Canyons’ doll ad featuring four Barbies in a hot tub, clothes scattered by the edge, and the copy: “They had only one rule for girls weekend. And they were trying to remember what that was.” It’s funny and doesn’t require much thought.

6. Cheesiest verbiage award: At some level I kind of like Big Sky’s Zen campaign, perhaps because it was, I hope, purposefully cheesy: “Not everyone who becomes lost desires to be found. Behold [in gaudy script] the biggest skiing in America.” I’m just not sure it worked.

Honorable mention: Copper Mountain’s “We haven’t seen them all week” ads featuring the “couple that feels like they never see each other.” Uh, are they lost? Does ski patrol know? Is anyone looking for them?

7. Best use of retro: Ski Banff/Lake Louise/Sunshine’s “postcard” ad with a quote from Ski: “God’s Postcard? Here it is.” There’s really no more iconic image in the ski world and the postcard treatment perfectly frames it.

Runner-up: Sun Valley/Ketchum, Idaho couples a catchy retro image of an old-school skier with this copy: “Would you rather visit a charming, small town or a famous, big mountain resort? Yes.” Nice juxtaposition of the two sides of Sun Valley.

8. The “When retro just seems dated” award: Whiteface/Lake Placid tried to evoke its past with its “Ski the Olympic Mountain” ad, but just looks like it’s stuck in a time warp.

9. Best use of mild exaggeration: As scare tactics go, you’ve got to hand it to Aspen Snowmass for pushing its green ethos. Its youth market ad in Freeskier magazine shows a skier being towed by a vehicle on a street with the question, “Where would you ski if it didn’t snow anymore?” Maybe the demise of the industry isn’t quite so imminent, but why take chances?

10. Worst of the youth market awards: Sorry, Snoqualmie, but I can’t even imagine kids today being down with such cheesy imagery and copy like “Tasty booters, over 50 jibs, superpipe and a crapload of snow!” But, hey, maybe they are. Let me ask my six-year-old.

—David O. Williams

Part II: The Snowboard Rag Review
High fives, resort community! You put together a memorable season of ads in the national snowboarding magazines this year. Your collective effort to wrest snowboarders from their warm beds onto your vertical acres of chilly goodness resulted in an overall great collection of ads.

A welcome trend was the use of artwork instead of relying solely on photography—action sports media is so photo-based, artwork helps an ad stand out in a magazine’s pages. There were also innovative calls to action that went much further than merely directing riders to check out the website “for more information.” It’s good to see resorts getting creative to try and get more traffic through their websites, where most of the informational goodies truly lie.

Enough talk, though, and more rock: here are some of the most (and least) memorable ads of the season.


1. Best overall creative: Bear Mountain. The most impressive ads of 2007 came from the creative team at Bear Mountain, making it the third year the resort has topped this list. The series of ads was one of the coolest I’ve ever seen for a resort, being unique, attractive and effective all at the same time.

Each showcased a unique portrait illustration of a team rider—JP Walker, Simon Chamberlain, Seth Huot and Lauri Heiskari—in a Bear Mountain setting. The illustrations are all really cool, but the JP Walker tops the bunch: beautifully drawn and capturing the California lifestyle (especially to a snowed-in Canadian like myself). The text is a little cheesy, but straight to the point: “…JP can surf in the morning, snowboard in the afternoon and skateboard at night. Having access to all three board sports nearby each other makes Bear Mountain a key part of the action sports lifestyle…” JP is an icon of snowboarding and the custom artwork in the ad is a nice nod to his celebrated career. It also reinforces the idea that Bear is a lifestyle mountain, not just a ski resort—an important concept to savvy young riders. The call to action: each ad is available as a limited-edition poster, and a sidebar directs readers to the Bear website to get a rider-signed print.

Booth Creek resorts scored a double play in this category with ads for Waterville Valley and Loon Mountain. The Loon ad, featuring a loon-in-a-bulls-eye design, was eye-catching for its simplicity and boldness. But the Waterville ad is my favorite. It features mock 1950s-style artwork selling a “Shred Farm”—with an illustration of riders in an ant-farm tank. It’s funny, creative and includes all the important details about its park features in retro ’50s-style ad copy. Great ad!

2. The creative losers: As always, though, a few resorts got left behind when the creative ship sailed. Vail’s simple Honda Sessions rider photo ads got lost in the pages of the magazine, and Mammoth’s photo-collage simply wasn’t very attention grabbing, nor did it play up its famous parks or notable team in a distinctive way.

3. Best call to action: The winner in this category was Whistler Blackcomb for its “What If Ullr Was a Girl?” campaign (see “Grrl Power,” SAM March 2006). The resort gets props, firstly, for targeting the women’s market specifically. Secondly, it’s call to action was pretty enticing: nominate yourself or a friend for a chance to win a trip to Whistler to compete in the $25,000 Ullr Girl contest at the World Ski and Snowboard Festival in April. Website visitors were urged to vote for their favorite rider or skier. The response to the campaign was huge. (WB also gets points for progression, as this was a much different approach than in previous years’ campaigns.)

4. Best use of a team: Breckenridge papered the snowboard magazines this year with its team-based campaign, “It’s their mountain. You’re just riding on it.” The ad was funny, it showed off their team well, and I liked the “Ride and play where the pros do” tagline.

Other winners in this category were Park City, for its eye-catching—literally! —ads featuring bold close-ups of its team riders’ peepers. (Park City’s team alone is attention grabbing–it’s one of the best in the industry.)

Aspen did well here, too, for promoting pipe princess Gretchen Bleiler. She is highly recognizable after last year’s Olympics and is a great ambassador for the mountain. (And yes, she’s also beautiful.)

5. Best illustration of assets: Sometimes, resorts just speak for themselves. Northstar at Tahoe wins this category for clean, simple ads that grabbed attention with creative use of photos combined with design. Ads from Heavenly and Big Sky both let their best assets (big terrain, lots o’ snow) do the talking. Neither ad was stunningly creative, but both did a good job of reminding readers what makes them special. The Big Sky ad loses some points for being a bit cheesy (the gothic-styled “behold” is pretty hokey) but the ad was effective with its simple panoramic photo and large text.

Poor use of assets goes to Snowmass Village for their “We have more” campaign. The creative was fine, but the text fell prey to lingo-speak: “Everyone comes back from Snowmass with a story. For some, it’s about conquering acres of waist-deep powder… for others, it’s launching ridiculous air out of the super-pipe…” Copywriters should always be careful of lingo–“ridiculous air” just sounds, well, ridiculous.

So there you have it. The resort community gets a collective gold star this year for its snowboarder-targeted ads. Creativity and innovation abounded, vulgarity was (mostly) restrained and cheesiness kept at bay. Talk about a winning combination!

—Katie Bailey



The Guest Editor’s Take
At one time or another we’ve all been the subject of criticism for our marketing efforts. It’s easy to be the sideline quarterback and say, “they should have done this or ask,” “why did they do that?” The bottom line is, did the ad stand out and get noticed? Is the communication relevant to the consumer? Is it interesting and does it reinforce your brand and create the desire to visit your resort?

Overall the creative in this year’s ads was good and opinions are like—well, you know, so here’s mine. The Canyons “Barbie” ads did a great job of selling with a sense of humor. On the flip side of funny, Sun Valley’s copy and creative was memorable and well-targeted.

The comments about Keystone’s ad remind me of something Warren Miller said about our resort years ago: “Sugar Bowl gets more than 40 feet of snow a year, unfortunately the rocks are over 50 feet tall.” That’s a great image for us to have, especially with the Miller audience. So what if there are rocks in the Keystone image? The area is selling un-Keystonelike terrain that was formerly out of bounds, and the imagery gives you that OB feel.

I disagreed with the comments regarding the snowboard ads from Mammoth and Northstar. I thought Mammoth’s ads had an urban feel that was on target and spoke to their audience, while Northstar’s ad came across with a bro-bra look that nonetheless felt corporate.

Of course no magazine advertising review would be complete without the “est” ads. You know, the bigg“est”, steep“est”, deep“est”, mo“est” game. I guess being Sugar Bowl, we must be the sweet“est.” Are you guys insecure, or are you just trying to give the rest of us an inferiority complex?

—Greg Murtha