A hill with trails may be skiable, but until it has a chair running to the top we usually don’t call it a ski area.

Turns out, ski lifts make a great setting for resort marketing content as well. This week I want to highlight three such campaigns. Some I’ve covered before, some are new, but I hope they’ll remind us of the perfect stage a triple chair can be for creating content.

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This week I’ve talked about interviews on double chairs and I’ve talked about concerts on gondolas, but a recent video by Snowbird proves you don’t even have to take it that far if you want to tap into the power behind setting content on lifts.

Because the ride up the lift itself is…well…enough. Especially when the morning light hits the mountain.

Rise and shine, the tram awaits. pic.twitter.com/6SLqhz2x5u

— Snowbird (@Snowbird) February 6, 2016

Notice how simple this edit is. Likely a GoPro sticking out the window to snag a clear view of what’s ahead and below, a bit of editing to cut it down to 30 seconds, and a simple soundtrack.

That’s it. Total creation time? Maybe an hour. Next to nothing in the video world.

But by simply giving device-dwellers a chance to vicariously experience emotion-filled elements of going skiing…

• The crisp air during an early-morning tram ride.
• The breathtaking view as you break through the clouds.
• The anticipation that builds as you near the top.

…priceless content is generated by doing nothing more than jumping on a lift with a camera when the light is right.

Power in Simplicity
Snowbird has really stepped up their video game since Dave Amirault landed a few months ago. And, simply put, it’s working.

This is why your brand needs to “do video.”

Reactions to our latest @Snowbird video on the @TWSNOW FB page… pic.twitter.com/mxxzdma7dV

— Dave Amirault (@ozskier) February 4, 2016

Thanks in part to edits like this from Justin Olsen that’s snagged a cool 90,000 Facebook video views, nearly 2,500 likes, and over 400 shares.

But what if you don’t have 10′ of snow that fall in a month or 13″ storms that come out of nowhere?

Let’s go back to that tram video I started with, notice the snow conditions. Notice the tracks with no new snow. This isn’t a powder day, this is a fairly typical morning in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

There is so much nostalgia and stored emotion around lifts, sometimes all we have to do is let our viewers at home ride it with us.

I’ve always thought it would be incredibly powerful to strap a camera to a chair for an endless livestream so those trapped at desks could take a virtual ride on the lift whenever they want and, by so doing, resurface those behavior-changing emotions whenever they wanted.

But these edits do that and more with minimal effort, low cost, and a nearly guaranteed content ROI.

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.