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What if your resort’s website existed in real life.

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GREGG
BLANCHARD
   

I’m writing this blog post from 32,002 feet as Delta Flight 210 crosses the Mississippi River on the way home from another quick trip to Inntopia HQ.

When I’m on a plane, I stare out windows, I think deep thoughts, I get big ideas, I give my imagination a long leash.

That’s what I’m doing now and, well, I’m gonna document it, because the wheels have kicked into high gear as I’ve pondered on this photo.


https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo2AIQ2j5W6/

A beautiful sign with Bromley-red siding behind, in my minds eye I started to play with this a bit.

First, I took…say…ten steps to the right so I was facing this wall about 20’ away.

Then, I shrunk the logo a bit. Maybe down to 30% of it’s original size.

Next, in that same color and texture of lettering but a much smaller size, I went into the shop and asked them to make four more blocks of letters that read:

  • Plan
  • Winter
  • Summer
  • Galleries

Yes, those are the same nav elements on Bromley’s website. See where I’m going with this?

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Here’s where you could take this a few directions, but I’ll take it in a simple one. Because what I’d do next is ask that shop to make a big assortment of larger letters and turn the rest of that wall into a marquee sign.

And see that “learn more” box? Yep, that’s full of brochures about that offer (well, a really terribly cropped image of brochures i found on Amazon).

Need a visual? Hang a massive 80″ TV next to that marquee.

Live weather? Snag a $20 thermometer from Home Depot.

Now just:

  1. Get some lights to point at this wall during the nighttime
  2. Point a Prism Cam at this sucker
  3. Make that live camera image the top part on the home page of your website
  4. Throw an old-school imagemap HTML element above this so those links and buttons and logos are all clickable

And…voila…your website exists in real life :)

Do you let people walk by and grab those brochures? Maybe.

Do you saw off the wall at the edge of the headline so your actual mountain in the background is the visual? Maybe.

Do you create a place where people can came and take selfies in front of the wall? Maybe.

As you can see, this idea could go anywhere.

The Gist
But its an idea. An idea where you take your website – a thing that has only existed in bits and pixels – and make it a real, physical thing. Make it a part of your base area. Make the webcam not a page on your site, but the thing that brings it to life.

Make it something people don’t just click on, make it something they can see or experience when they visit.

Maybe it wouldn’t work, maybe it would fail miserably, maybe I should stop staring out windows on flights and actually get some real work done. But with the right tech and execution and people? Maybe, just maybe, you could pull it off.


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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