Ski Swag Wars: The Sunshine Keychain Opener vs Sugar’s Classy Stainless

A couple months ago I made a call for swag and you guys delivered. I’ve got a stack of koozies, stickers, and other gear that I’ll be featuring, two at a time, on the blog. Hopefully, with my super-scientific analysis, we’ll spark some ideas for sweet swag to line-up for next season. If you missed the first few battles, check out round 1 here, round 2 here, round 3 here, and round 4 here.

The Criteria
I’m going to judge the swag on four areas and give a score for each to determine a winner:

• Cool: would I actually want to use it?
• Useful: is it something I could use on a regular basis?
• Branding: do I know it’s tied to a certain resort?
• Unique: how common is this sort of swag?
• Price: this is a new one, to compare the cost to produce each item

With a score of 1-10 on each, we’ll end up with a score out of 50. Onward.

Contestant #1 – Sunshine Village
Snowboard Shaped Bottle Opener

I don’t use bottle openers much, so correct me if I am way off on these ratings. But, even so, I like this little piece of swag.

• Cool: 8 – When you are a snowboarder, and that is part of your identity, every little bit helps to point that out, even your bottle opener.
• Useful: 8 – Small and lightweight, when a bottle opening need arises, you’ll be ready.
• Branding: 9 – Hard to miss a nice Sunshine logo on one side of the opener.
• Unique: 9 – I can honestly say I’ve never seen a snowboard shaped bottle opener.
• Price: 6 – Probably not the cheapest bit of swag to produce, but not the most expensive either.
• TOTAL: 40

Contestant #2 – Sugar Bowl
Stainless Steel Bottle Opener

When I got Sugar’s swag package, I didn’t expect to find what I did. This bottle opener is legit. Sturdy and classy, it really stood out from the rest of the pack.

• Cool: 7 – Lower on the cool scale but higher on the classy scale (maybe I need a new rating system for “classy”)
• Useful: 7 – Not quite as portable, but dang useful. And, in a pinch, it’s tough enough that you could probably use it as a crowbar for any construction/burglary needs.
• Branding: 10 – The logo is also classy and printed very sharply on one side.
• Unique: 10 – I gave this a 10 because it’s such high quality compared to most swag. I wouldn’t throw this away even if I had a dozen openers already.
• Price: 4 – The downside is, of course, the price. It costs more to produce, but does the extra value that creates make up for the cost?
• TOTAL: 38

Winner: Sunshine Village
I’ll tell you what, if I hadn’t chosen an arbitrary list of criteria to rank these items, I’d have a tough time not declaring Sugar Bowl the winner. When it comes to sweet looking goods, that opener is tough to beat. But, with the criteria as it was, and a clever snowboard-shaped opener in the ring, Sunshine Village came out on top. Sunshine has a lot of fun, simple swag that reminds me of the vibe I get from skiing. The sun glasses, the bottle opener, etc. all fit the brand so they certainly deserve such a prestigious award as a Swag Wars victory.

Want your resort’s swag included in the next round? Either email a picture to me at contact@slopefillers.com or, if you have some to share, mail those goodies to:

Gregg Blanchard
506 Crazy Horse Circle
Edwards, CO 81632