Killington Peak.
The snow says it all!

Killington Peak.
The snow says it all!

OK... I must be getting old.

For the last several years, the Killington resort has run a viral marketing campaign in an attempt to attract people to the resort. As most of the advertising dollars for Killington had been siphoned away by the parent company, ASC, in an attempt to stay solvent, the Killington Resort was left pursuing a low cost approach involving email news letters (aka "The Drift) and email snow reports. One can argue the effectivity of the campaign, visitors to Killington have steadily declined during the period, but every now and then something sneaks into the report that stops you in your tracks. Todays report caught my eye...which actually is what it is supposed to do.

Buried inside todays snow report you will find the comment.."Make sure you check out the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge today and if you're looking to get steezy yourself check out Bear Mountain terrain parks on Bear Trap, Dream Maker - which features 20 progressive hits, rails and boxes - and the 430-foot long Superpipe!" Seems pretty marketing oriented... a list of features, an event, a call to action... wait a minute... "steezy".. what is that?

A quick google search provides the answer "a SNOWBOARDER term that combines the word "Style" with "Ease" to create the act of doing a trick with style and ease to make it done with super steez. A rider with steez would be referred to as "steezy" whether it be because of his/her sick tricks, gangster aparrel, or watevs". ??? Huh???Gangster snowboarding ??? at Killington???? This is how we bring people to Killington ???

There are a lot of curious things going on in the marketing of various activities across the country, including the snow sports industry. There is even a standard term, "Gangster Marketing", which describes what the Killington Snow Report is trying to accomplish. But do "Pop Culture Gangsters" read the Killington Snow Report and then decide to come to Killington for the day??? Or do their mother and fathers? Think about that one.

"It's all about the snow...." Let it snow!