Vail Resorts Mimick Some-E-Cards to Push Pass Sales
Gregg Blanchard /
No sooner had closing dates coming to view did resorts start to push season pass sales for next season. The strategies varied – ski free for the rest of the season, lock in the lowest price, extra benefits – but Vail Resorts tried a different approach: piggyback on a style of content that was already popular to promote the reasons to buy an Epic Pass now rather than later.
The style they chose came from none other than Some-E-Cards. Here are a few examples:
Pretty simple formula: a plain background (usually a pastel-ish color), a line drawing of someone / thing, a witty saying. Following that same recipe, Vail Resorts came up with these to promote the buddy tickets that come with your early pass purchase:
Did They Work?
Each of these were shared on the Snow.com Facebook page which, as social media is so talented at doing, gave a quick glimpse into the how skiers liked or disliked the attempt.
The first version snagged 27 likes and a negative comment. The second was liked 20 times, had one share and a handful of comments. The last image was liked 41 times, shared 12 times, and also garnered a list of comments.
Overall, the reception wasn’t super friendly but I think the pessimism was aimed mainly at the buddy tickets or pass prices, not the format.
Piggybacking
Piggybacking on a format like Some-E-Cards has the potential to look a little bit like a social media / meme version of bait-and-switch (you click expecting to see a funny card from a specific site but get an ad instead from you instead), but the tone was casual enough that I doubt people got that impression.
A clever move that did fairly well in the social media arena. With a different selling point it might have done even better.