The New Year signals a steady stream of critics calling out the marketing winners and losers of last year.

For the ski industry, this carries on (with the occasional break) for months, with the final chapter in this anecdotal parade coming as the season wraps up.

But let’s be clear about a few things before that season arrives.

Politics Politics
For a guy that is so indifferent about most political issues, it’s a little surprising that one of my favorite movies is All the President’s Men, the tale of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s unearthing of Watergate.

Perhaps it’s my fanboydom of Robert Redford, perhaps it’s just the amazing quality of the story, but perhaps it’s something more.

Something deeper.

Perhaps it’s the moral of the story. Or, rather, the morals of the story.

Ben Bralee
One of my favorite scenes is where the wise Post bigwig, Ben Bradlee, is reminscing about the time he took a lot of flack for a story he wrote, just as Woodward and Berstein were for theirs.

Then, in one of those important moments of forshadowing, he turned and said,

“I screwed up…but I wasn’t wrong.”

That’s what I want to remind us all of today.

Panels Don’t Decide
Every pundit around may call your marketing a failure. They may call it the worst marketing of the year. They may stoop and jab and throw a left hook right below your marketing belt.

They may say you screwed up, but you may not be wrong.

Lists and awards are given by imperfect people with imperfect views on imperfect marketing. So when someone drops the #fail hashtag on your efforts but you know they were the right choice, don’t be afraid to stand tall and defend your work.

You may have “screwed up”, but you may not be wrong.

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.