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Ah, the irony of late fall. Resorts are doing all sorts of great stuff but it’s also when I schedule all of my bigger projects for Inntopia so I’m ready to hit the ground running in January when the holidays are behind us.

I was deep in the zone last week and missed writing a post, so I’m going to make up for it by doing a quick recap of five things that I’ve seen so far this fall that I really like.

1) Deer Valley + Rad Smith

As is probably clear from how often I’ve written about them as of late, Deer Valley’s is doing some fantastic marketing right now. The stories they’re telling work great on their own but also weave together into a deeper narrative around their big expansion. They’ve put in the time to unveil each piece thoughtfully and intentionally. Their new trail map was no exception as they featured not just the process of hand-painting their map, but the story of the painter behind the scenes – Rad Smith – who beautifully told the story of their expansion through his unique lens.

As I love to say, stories give moments meaning, and this story is going to deepen each skier’s relationship with an already nostalgic, meaningful part of the skiing experience. Great work, Deer Valley. And great work, Rad, the map looks incredible.

2) Red Lodge’s New Logo

Logos are a funny thing. On the one hand, it is a matter of art and trying to represent a great whole. On the other, they’re also one of those things that marketers have to use over and over again in all sorts of situations. So while they should look great, yes, they should also be very versatile. One of the things that has always frustrated my own logo us is logos with thin lines, too much complexity, and generic shapes / fonts. Red Lodge had a lot of all of those, but their new logo comes in bolder and with a much more unique vibe that I can picture working really well either as a whole or just as a mark or word in lots of situations.

.Logo redesigns are hardest for smaller resorts because design work can be crazy expensive, but I think they’ve got a great things going with this new mark and shade of red.

3) Cranmore’s Cozy Booth

Cranmore has a lot of great assets to work with – a beautiful mountain, great colors, and a strong brand – and this beautifully simple booth combined all of them perfectly. A big, curving backdrop with nothing but a wide shot of the resort and their logo sets the backdrop for a cozy fireplace and the Cranmore team decked out in classic sweaters.

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Simplicity is so often the source of great marketing and they’ve proven this once again.

4) Snowbird’s New Site

Like logos, websites are things that need to look great but also do their job. I can say if things look great, but only the folks behind the scenes know if it’s doing it’s job. According to Tess Hobbs, their old site was great at working with the incredible asset library the resort has built but struggled in a few key areas like moving folks around the site effectively and getting visitors quickly to the information they’re looking for. So they worked on a design that built on both of those things – great photography and lessons from previous nav iterations – and did a fantastic job.

By the way, my favorite part is that side blue nav that, on mobile, has a fixed-bottom position for easy tapping to some of their top pages. It’s a clever, smart addition for a team with a focus on improving navigation to those page.

5) Jay’s Day for the Devoted

Look, skiing can’t be free all the time. And for many resorts it can’t even be cheap all the time. But giving folks a chance to ski on the cheap (or free) every now and again is a nice olive branch to extend to your devoted fans when prices are high and economies are tricky. That’s exactly what Jay Peak does with their annual Day for the Devoted, offering 750 free tickets.

This isn’t the first time Jay has done this and I hope it won’t be the last.

Did I miss something your resort is working on? Shoot me an email – contact@slopefillers.com – and let me know. It’s hard to notice everything so a little help seeing the industry is always appreciated.

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.