Wanted to share a few quick thoughts this morning on the Deer Valley ad above.

It reminds me of a marketing concept in the SaaS world that makes an intriguing comparison between your customer, your product, and your customer with the product to illustrate what you actually sell.

The analogy they use is Mario:

This is what you sell #sales #mario pic.twitter.com/sbtOsWEcwD

— Kara Ivy Goldberg (@KaraIvy) July 7, 2015

When you apply this metaphor to ski, it begs an interesting question:

“What is it that we’re actually selling to our guests?”

We use the word “freedom” a lot in ski, but I feel like we have an opportunity to add some specificity to that claim. Not just “freedom” but “freedom from ______.”

In that same thought, the ad at the top (from a recent SKI Magazine) caught my eye. And it caught my eye because these days that’s often the role skiing (or other outdoor activities) play in my own life. It’s providing “freedom from cluttered thoughts” or “freedom from information overload.” Skiing give me a chance to step back, clean the brain, not stare at a screen for a while, and see life with a level of clarity I rarely find anywhere else.

It’s a messaging angle that, I think, carries a ton of potential and will only become more relevant and the days and years go on.

Nice work by the Deer Valley team to take that “freedom” concept one more level and hit an angle that applies very specifically to me but, I’d have to think, millions of other people as well.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.