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In the dozen+ years since I started SlopeFillers I’ve found myself in countless conversations about the possibility of national marketing campaign to promote skiing.

There is clearly a latent desire to unite our voices under a common message, but there isn’t as much agreement on what that message could be, how we might distribute it, or who would be the one in charge of such an effort.

I don’t have the answers either, but there’s an idea tickling the ol’ brain lately that I want to toss out there.

And it comes on the heels of the Bridge Fire in California.

Mountain High’s Amazing Escape

When I saw this footage shared on Tuesday, I figured the resort was doomed. How could you escape that?

It’s hard to believe I just watched this live… poor friends at @mthigh 😢 #BridgeFire pic.twitter.com/zEsjHi390o

— Utah Daily Snow (@WasatchSnow) September 11, 2024

So you can imagine my surprise when, the next day, reports started emerging that by running their snowmaking system at full gas just as the fire approached the team had saved much of the resort from catastrophic damage.

It’s amazing story of creativity and hustle in the face of overwhelming odds.

And it’s a story brings me to a key point.

Local vs National

During a crisis like this a resort marketing and communications team has very little value from telling their story outside of their local markets. The story itself is certainly strong enough to have a chance to make national headlines, but without a benefit from going national with the story there’s no reason for a small, local team to pursue it. And, in most cases, there isn’t time for them to devote toward doing so even if they wanted to.

I feel similarly about stories like Whaleback that LL Bean helped elevate a few years ago.

Once again we have a story that, to the resort, only has value locally. Once again, that story is absolutely compelling enough to earn more mainstream, national coverage, but there simply a good reason for Whaleback to chase that coverage when their market is almost entirely local.

There are dozens more examples like this one.

The Message

As you think about these examples, think about the message hidden inside these moments. These are tales of an industry filled with resilient, creative, hardworking people that love their communities, put everything on the line for places their care about, and come out on top.

They’re stories of underdogs and upstarts, people who have devoted their entire lives to a sport, many times giving up much better incomes and opportunities to do so, because they believe in it so deeply. Because it means so much to them and their families and their lives.

Those are amazing stories.

Which means that one of the ironies of not being able to figure out what the message would be for a national campaign is that…well…the message is already there, baked deeply into the industry itself. And it’s a message that’s showing up in moments all of the industry every season.

We just need someone with the time and resources and reasons to help elevate them.

…and the Messenger

In other words, maybe we don’t need a campaign with a new story. Maybe all we need is a messenger for existing stories.

Someone whose one job is to take all of those incredible, local message about the ski industry and pitch them on a national level. To see the potential in all of the moments that exist every day at our resorts and have the time and resources to give those the audience they deserve.

Maybe that’s out national campaign. Not a thoughtfully scripted narrative to try to describe our industry as a whole, but a constant stream of organic moments and stories that only need a little polishing rather than a blank-canvas campaign that could go anywhere. Maybe that one role is something we could agree on if agree on.

Maybe.

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.