This was the footer on a recent Snowshoe employee email.
Snowshoe’s food and beverage department recently began offering venison chili while various employees suddenly began deploying such words such as “escape,” “wow,” and “recommended” into their emails. Meanwhile, the resort launched an internal ad campaign to remind all employees about Snowshoe’s uniqueness.
The strategy, outlined in a July article in Ski Area Management magazine, began with a major brainstorming process that resulted in seven brand words that, in addition to the three mentioned above, are “wild,” “unexpected delight,” “real,” and “guide.”
As depicted in the article, penned by recently departed marketing director Brad Larsen, the effort relies on Snowshoe employees. Indeed, one flyer in the internal campaign shows a shopkeeper smiling as she delivers a package to a customer with the reminder: “Do more than welcome our guests. Guide them.”
The effort was led by Gregg Bagni of Alien Truth Communications who convened a two-day project to engage managers and employees in brainstorming words that epitomize the Snowshoe experience. Clarifying Snowshoe’s brand left lasting results, according to Larsen’s article.
Existing employees, he writes, are “internalizing” the messages. Meanwhile, new employees are getting a 15-minute orientation on the meaning of Snowshoe, and everyone gets a copy of the new “brand book” that tells the Snowshoe story.
Larsen is no stranger to a good branding effort. He opens and closes the article with reminiscences about a 1950s-era custard stand in Wisconsin called Gillies. And he seems heartened that now Snowshoe has branding he can be proud of— even though he has left to lead the marketing effort for the Maine resort of Sugarloaf.
“We did all this,” Larsen concludes, “without complicated focus groups or customer surveys.”
