Two years ago a series was produced by SKITHEEAST that, the moment I saw it, make a buttload (technical marketing term) of sense.

It’s called “Working for the Weekend”, and it’s back in 2015 for another round of episodes. Here’s the first:

The Premise
Here’s the story.

Ben, a successful lawyer, works hard all week as he gazes out his office window at a distant mountain range and the escape those peaks offer from his 9-hour-a-day job.

When Friday comes, he packs up his gear in search of snow.

The Value
The value in this lies in how relevant his story is to the huge group of non-core skiers that live in a resorts database / CRM.

Like Ben, they don’t ski every day, they work every day. Only when they answer that last email on Friday are they finally free to do what they truly love.

As an industry, however, we’ve been very guilty of only glamorizing the pros and the locals. Consider this tweak.

Three Markets, Three Families
What if this summer you scoured your CRM for one loyal family from each of your three major markets. They would not only be loyal, but highly representative of the city/area they are from.

Then, during the 2015/16 season, you recorded their stories and relationships with the mountains. The soccer games, the busy school week, mom and dad working hard at the office, but all in the context of the anticipation of visiting your resort (like Park City did in this awesome vid).

You show them doing the day-to-day stuff, but then eagerly packing their bags, you show them driving, their first excited glimpse of the mountain, the amazing time skiing, the reminiscent drive home, the anticipation of the next trip.

Can’t Relate
A local “living the dream” may represent a fun story, but to the vast majority of families who ski at your mountain, that’s not reality. Their minds can only live vicariously through that narrative for so long before it becomes laughably far away.

And why? Because soccer practice, 9-5 work days, carpools, mortgages…that’s their reality. It’s why the video above gets comments like this:

But if you can show how your resort fits perfectly into that kind of lifestyle, suddenly their imagination isn’t so wild. It’s actually within reach.

After all, if that family from Dallas in the video can do it, why not theirs?

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.