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Branding
Logo, name, tagline, colors…another element is making a case for core, resort brands.

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GREGG
BLANCHARD
   

At the core of my efforts to improve my (lacking) branding prowess is always an interesting balance between variety and consistency.

By holding some things contant to anchor the brand (logo, colors, name) and keeping another group fluid (tagline, voice, design style) you can not just monotonously plunk away at middle C, but play a catchy tune tailored to your target market. While some aspects of photography certainly need to be fluid, one area has begun to make a case for consistency.

Take Jackson Hole, for example.

When you look at a resort like Jackson Hole and what content consistently rises to the top in terms of total engagement, this is what you see:

The Tetons.

Change the angle, change the light, change the time of day, and you can use pictures of the same thing over and over and over. Suddenly, that consistency makes the Tetons part of Jackson Hole’s brand. That view becomes part of the core message.

This sort of view is what the guys at Prism refer to as a “Signature Shot.”

“We call it dynamic “Place Branding”. Every travel experience has a signature shot that over time will tell an incredible content story. We do a significant amount of research and spent a lot of time ensuring we get that shot.”

And here’s the thing about these shots. Once you find them, you find yourself at a near-perfect branding intersection of the challenges I mentioned earlier. Consistency because it’s the same shot over and over. Variety because it’s nature.

It’s why Heavenly’s prism cam can be shared over and over without panning or tilting.

Just like Arapahoe Basin’s.

Suddenly you start to see something you can add to your core list of brand anchors.

  • The Name
  • The Logo/Mark
  • The Colors
  • The View

Will this work for every ski area in the world? Of course not. But, then again, not every ski area is looking to build a brand anywhere near as deep as a Colorado or Lake Tahoe resort.

That said, I hope smaller areas don’t brush this off. Every ski area I’ve ever visited has had a photo-worthy view. Sometimes it really is a breathtaking vista, but other times it’s simple a new angle on something I thought I had an accurate mental map of.

However you capture it, resorts are starting to brand themselves not just with “the views”, but THE view. And that’s a pretty cool direction.


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.

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