I’d seen the teaser, I’d heard it was coming soon, and when it finally dropped, I similarly dropped everything and watched.

To say I was not disappointed would be an understatement. There is something about smaller skiing that, for me, just fits. The price, the people, the lack of pretense, the minimalism…I can’t beat it. As you may know, that vibe is found in heavy doses throughout the midwest.

But I’m also “Gregg from SlopeFillers”, so it’s likely no surprise that a few clever marketing-related things stood out.

Caberfae’s Different Ticket Every Day

“What’s unique about Caberface’s ticketing process is that we have a different ticket every day…People definitely collect our tickets. We get pictures of Christmas trees decorated with tickets.”

I completely love this. What a brilliant way to make your experience collectable, to add extra reasons to come back, to give your skiers something to publicly show their relationship to your mountain. This is such an awesome move.

Terrain Features…for Everyone

This is something I’ve talked about before (and wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the video) so I’ll quote myself:

“What if all that snow and time and creativity and money were spent on creating terrain parks for the rest of us. A place where the snow was sculpted to create fun and unique sliding sensations for the people who don’t want to risk life and limb to do so.”

The solutions to beginners and families hanging out in terrain parks and jumping off the side of the little ramps or rails and boxes is NOT more signage, it’s building those sorts of features somewhere else so everyone – not just park rats – can have some new, fun shapes to play on. Not totally sure which resort this is at, but I love it. It’s also something that Benjamin Bartz talked about coming to Snowriver as well.

Worries Around Jerry/Gaper Culture

“We want to be all inclusive of everyone that comes here. One thing that bothers me a little bit is Jerry of the day and gaper culture. We want everyone that walks up here – no matter how they’re dressed – we want them to feel welcome.”

I think this is an underappreciated sentiment in our sport. On the one hand, we want everyone to come and participate. On the other, core skiers laugh at newbies behind their backs. I love the marketing mindset of celebrating beginners, not making fun of the lack of knowledge around how to dress, act, etc.

So, those are the three I noticed.

Now stop ready my reaction to the video, and start watching it. It’s a perfect way to spend a half hour.

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.