I think my brain has developed a sort of radar that mentally tracks certain resorts for certain types of content. Yet, one of my favorite videos of 2013 came from a resort that wasn’t anywhere near that radar for video.

Stowe.

At 7 minutes, this video was a bit longer than others coming out (which I’ll get to in a sec), but the story, editing, and footage were more than enough to keep me watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xT6M1OnEpg

So why is it great? I think it succeeds on a few, key points:

• Faces: it gives names, personalities, and faces to the crew behind the scenes
• Teaching: the video teaches the viewer how a resort runs and satisfies those bits of human curiosity
• Showcase: at the same time, this teaching shows the viewer how great the conditions are at Stowe and why that happens
• Quality: the quality of the video is sharp with nothing that distracts

It’s good, solid video. With over 3,300 views and lots of positive feedback, I hope they run with this in other distribution channels.

The Other Path
But there is a point about this video that doesn’t fit the mold. As I mentioned, it is much longer than recent resort video trends.

For example, Aspen/Snowmass’s OurStory could fit three of their videos into this video alone. At writing, those videos (plus the teaser) had a combined 18,500 views. While those are two isolated numbers in a complex distribution question, I think it does indicate the way users do like these short, bite-sized bits of content.

So should Stowe have broken up their video into episodes? Maybe, maybe not. As is, I think it hints that although shorter works well, it’s not impossible to find success with longer videos.

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.