The outdoor industry seems to have a unique willingness to get weird with their marketing. From Pit Viper’s absurd emails (sign up for them, if you haven’t already) to Snowbird’s One Star reviews, things can get pretty wild.
Now, I’m not a marketing expert, per se, but I’m pretty sure insulting your target audience isn’t quite the way to convince them to use your product. 12 years ago, the people over at Jackson Hole had the opposite idea.
Imagine sitting on the road after a long day of skiing in Colorado. You’re feeling good about yourself, you feel like you had a great day. Maybe you practiced your carving, maybe you learned a new trick, maybe you jumped off some epic cliff. You’re feeling good. Suddenly, out of no where, a mobile billboard roasts you and you’re favorite mountains: “How was practice today?”
According to X (formerly Twitter) user Jamie Storrs, that’s exactly what Jackson Hole decided to do around twelve years ago, with these moving billboards driving on I-70 and around Summit County throughout the winter.
Look, whatever you think about the skiing in Colorado versus the skiing at Jackson Hole, you have to admit that it’s a darn solid marketing campaign. Either you’re a serious skier who can have a good laugh at something like this, or you’re not a serious skier who’s now interested in whether or not Jackson Hole is actually that great. If your mountain is so sick that Colorado mountains act as practice for your terrain, it must be pretty gnarly.
I live for this kind of rivalry, too. Even the ski resorts that are owned by the same company can have some fun with this, if not more so. Personally I think we need more marketing like this.
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