Aspen/Snowmass Rolls Out New Prints Ads to Mixed Reception

I’ll keep this short, the real content is found in an interview and a response to that interview. Over the summer, Christian Knapp left his post as Keystone’s Marketing Director and became the VP of Marketing at Aspen/Snowmass. Soon after he landed, a new print campaign was ready to roll that featured a handful of variations on the “Before Aspen, _______” theme. A unique angle I hadn’t seen in a print campaign that certainly caught my attention as a marketer.

Click on each for full size image. Many thanks to David Amarault at Aspen/Snowmass for providing the full size ads.

One Aspen local, however, didn’t get it. In fact, his not-getting-it was so far reaching that he wrote an entire article about why. It’s an interesting perspective but one I took with a grain of salt because, well, the ads weren’t written for Aspen locals, they were written for potential Aspen tourists. I personally, like the campaign quite a bit, but it’s a unique dialogue to read. Here are the two articles:

Original Interview with Christian Knapp
SkiCo’s marketing campaign focuses on what was and is
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/148922

Roger Marolt’s Reply
Skico revisits Aspen mythology
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20110916/COLUMN/110919887/1021&parentprofile=1061

P.S. – I hope you’ll forgive me for not writing a post about all the social media shenanigans (especially from Facebook) of the last few days. I need a nice weekend for that to all settle :)