Marketing Simplicity: Powder Beacon in Center of Town
January 20th, 2012
“Continuing my trends of sharing simple, yet powerful marketing ideas on Tuesdays, I’ll draw from the Marekting Director at Whitefish Mountain Resort, Nick Polumbus.”
Columbus discovered and brought awareness of the new world. [Nick] Polumbus is trying to bring awareness to locals of the powder they discover on the slopes. The idea is pretty simple: if there is 6″ of new snow (or more) at the resort, or if there is an inversion day (smoggy valley yet clear air on the mountain), a blue beacon on the top of a Whitefish-based brewing company would flash, signaling how good it is up on the mountain.
A Few, Key Stats
Having a powder beacon in downtown Park City wouldn’t make much sense for Park City Mountain Resort who has a lift running out of downtown: you are in the weather it is notifying you of. Figuring this probably wasn’t the case, I pulled up a few stats:
- Elevation in Town: 3,028
- Base Elevation of Resort: 4,464
- Summit Elevation of Resort: 6,817
- Annual Snowfall in Town: 70″
- Annual Snowfall at Resort: 300″
- Distance from Town to Resort: 7.2 miles
In other words, it’s less than 15 minutes from town, but the weather is vastly different.
Why I Like It
Snow reports, for the most part, have to be checked. True resorts may have anywhere from a hundred to a couple thousand people that would like to be notified of powder days, but that message can be received at a variety of times. I like the fact that it would be on a high point, in the center of town, and would only be turned on for 6″+ of snow, where good turns can be had. Seems like a good threshold.
It’s nothing spectacular, but I really do like the idea. A simple reminder that the resort really does receive 5x the snow the town is blessed with. Not sure a blinking light is the most effective idea, but it does stick to the idea of simplicity. Clever, innovative, simple. Very interested to see if this one gets approved.
More Reading
Billings Gazette:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_37739a50-ffe7-11e0-83ad-001cc4c002e0.html
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SlopeFillers is run by marketer, and resort marketing enthusiast, Gregg Blanchard. Have you seen some clever resort marketing worthy of a post?
I like the idea and it would work great for the small town of Sisters Oregon just east of Hoodoo ski area where I am the marketing director.
My only concern is would we be training our skiers to look out only for those special days. It's like the furniture store that has a different fire sale every other weekend. Consumers will wait until the next sale.
Leif, I don't see a lot of crossover between the fire sale example mainly because it isn't necessarily a discount, just an alert (like a powder alert email) when conditions are prime. Good feedback though, definitely will be interesting to watch this one.
Love this idea.