Social Media Upends Ski Resort Marketing

For anyone interested in using social media for business — watch this video! Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz explains how they are using social media in place of many of the traditional advertising mediums they’ve used in the past — he says, “we’re using social media, something no one really has a road map for yet” and compares his company’s strategy to that of a scene from one of my favorite movies, Braveheart.

This is one of the best examples of social media in action that I’ve seen – well explained and from the perspective of a business who has many choices where they can spend their considerable marketing dollars.

From AdvertisingAge Digital:

“SOCIAL MEDIA UPENDS SKI RESORT MARKETING
Radically Accelerates Consumer Decision Cycle

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Social media is playing a major role in accelerating the decision cycle of consumers who patronize ski resorts. As a result, one of the country’s largest such companies — Vail Resorts — has abandoned its long-time advertising strategies and practices. In their place, the billion-dollar-a-year corporation, which operates five major resorts and twenty hotels, has built a new in-house marketing operation that uses social media and other digital venues to constantly engage skiing enthusiasts in real time. In this nine-minute video CEO Rob Katz explains the dramatic changes.”

Yes, it’s a 9 minute video – well worth every second — go check it out!

Caroline

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.