A couple months ago I made a call for swag and you guys delivered. I’ve got a stack of koozies, stickers, and other gear that I’ll be featuring, two at a time, on the blog. Hopefully, with my super-scientific analysis, we’ll spark some ideas for sweet swag to line-up for next season. If you missed the first few battles, check out round 1 here, round 2 here, round 3 here, round 4 here and round 5 here.

The Criteria
I’m going to judge the swag on four areas and give a score for each to determine a winner:

• Cool: would I actually want to use it?
• Useful: is it something I could use on a regular basis?
• Branding: do I know it’s tied to a certain resort?
• Unique: how common is this sort of swag?

With a score of 1-10 on each, we’ll end up with a score out of 40. Onward.

Contestant #1 – Lake Louise
Metal Rainforest Brand Water Bottle

I’ve never really got on board with the metal water bottle trend (I usually just use an old Powerade or cycling bottle) but there is no deny the fact that this bottle looks pretty sharp.

• Cool: 8 – I have to say, this bottle is pretty slick looking and, from looking around at ski culture, would be considered cool to use as well
• Useful: 10 – Water bottles always come in handy – hikes, rides, road trips, putting camp fires out, you name it.
• Branding: 9 – Sharp printing of the logo, tagline, and web address on the side. Hard to miss.
• Unique: 6 – There really are a lot of bottles out there and this was one of three I got for swag wars.
• TOTAL: 33

Contestant #2 – Mt Bachelor
Silicone “Glass”

It’s hard to judge the value of a beer glass when you don’t drink, so I consulted the more in-the-know tech guys for their input on the value of such a piece.

• Cool: 9 – Even when it’s holding water, it’s still dang cool to know my glass is not in danger of my clumsiness but even the tech jedi Ben said that he knows a guy that has a bunch of these and loves them.
• Useful: 10 – The fact that it’s sat next to me at work since I got it puts this as a 10/10 of usefulness. Ben also informed me that these can come in pretty handy on a rafting trip.
• Branding: 10 – Love the simple “Naturally” tagline and big, but not too big, logo.
• Unique: 9 – Chalk it up to drinking naivete, but this was much first exposure to such a sweet little product.
• TOTAL: 38

Winner: Mt Bachelor
The Lake Louise bottle was sharp, but it might have been unfair of me to put it up against a rubbery beer glass. It’s a clever, useful, and unique piece of swag that I can’t help but think gets a pretty awesome response from whoever gets their hands on one. Great work Bachelor crew.

Want your resort’s swag included in the next round? Either email a picture to me at contact@slopefillers.com or, if you have some to share, mail those goodies to:

Gregg Blanchard
506 Crazy Horse Circle
Edwards, CO 81632

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.