In addition to the British Columbia sets, an international array of mountains play host to the Voleurz graduates including: Spain, Norway, Sweden and the States. I must say the massive gap built to go hand-in-hand with the new PEAK2PEAK gondola, created by Whistler Blackcomb, was a great way for the new lift system to grab some publicity attention while the Voleurz boys went at the massive hit. Oh, and don’t forget the nanaimo bar eating in Nanaimo, BC. Very clever.
Outdoor Graduation is indeed the most fun you can have for free.

Enjoy!

The demand is high and HBC cannot produce them fast enough. I am looking forward to seeing all the red knit hands in the crowd come time for the torch to enter the Waterloo Region on December 27. HBC’s “Wear your heart on your hands” campaign promotes the $10 mittens, with some proceeds going to charity, as a way for everyone in Canada to get involved with the torch relay.

Today was day 42 of the 100 day Torch Relay. Montreal, Quebec plays host to the flame and a huge celebration will be at Place Jacques-Cartier this evening.

If you want to follow the flame as it crosses Canada I would recommend following the Torch Relay on twitter (@followtheflame). They’re bilingual tweeters too!

Oh, and you can attempt to order yours on the Hudson’s Bay Co. website.

The invitation was outlining an event to be staged in Kitchener while the Olympic torch relay come through town on December 27, 2009. I was offended by the invitation to protest against my beliefs. I believe in Canada. I believe in the Olympics.

The Olympic haters planning the protest are part of a movement called “No 2010″. This organization claims to be resisting the Olympics due to the nature that they’re taking place on ‘stolen land’. The group describes the ‘corporate circus’ as the following:

“The Olympics are not about the human spirit & have little to do with athletic excellence; they are a multi-billion dollar industry backed by powerful elites, real estate, construction, hotel, tourism and television corporations, working hand in hand with their partners in crime: government officials & members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).” (quoted from the No 2010 website)

If watching the videos below doesn’t set you over the edge I urge you to head to their website. I do not agree with a word of any of it, but I will admit it did open my eyes to an entirely new perspective on the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympic games. I pity the people behind the crimes against the Olympics and wish that they were able to feel the joy and spirit that fills me when I think about Canada hosting the world in February… And the icing on the cake: at the beginning of the videos they write “for educational purposes only, we’re not responsible if you f*%k shit up.” Hard to take them seriously isn’t it?

Part 1:

Part 2:

Headline performers unveiled:

As part of the Vancouver 2010 concert series presented by Bell, 12 headliners, including Nelly Furtado, Barenaked Ladies, Loverboy and Hedley, will be performing for one night each from February 14 to 26* during the Victory Ceremonies at BC Place. Each of the Vancouver Victory Ceremonies, which start at 6:30 pm (Pacific Time), are sponsored by a territory or province.

Just in time for Christmas these cool boards are available at select TNA/Aritzia stores across Canada.

Aritzia also carries Park Life; a clothing line licensed by the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter games. Ladies coast to coast can now demonstrate their Olympic spirit, without sacrificing style.

“With the 2010 Olympics being held in our backyard, Park Life for Aritzia is our answer to the big event – a fashion-forward collection inspired by Canadian athletes, West Coast culture and vintage sports graphics.” (courtesy of the Aritzia style blog)

To learn more about Park Life or the Endeavour snowboard collaboration head to the Aritzia website. (WARNING: You will not leave the site without wanting to buy something!)

“Greenwashing” definition: The practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources. It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. (For example, you’ve all seen those little cards in hotel washrooms that encourage you to reuse your towels in hopes to reduce water consumption and curb global warming.)

So, I found this neat article on how ski resorts are attempting to clean up their acts as their visitors become more environmentally aware. Is this an honest effort by the resorts to reduce their carbon footprint, or is it just a smoke and mirrors attempt by public relations departments to appear as if they’re doing so?

Aspen Skiing Resorts, Auden Schendler, Executive Director of Sustainability, has quite a lot to say about this subject. Predictions vary from continent to continent, climate change skeptics that if current trends persist, most of the world’s ski resorts may not survive the next 100 years.

The article is quite lengthy but I found it refreshing to read Schendler’s disgustingly honest truth behind flashy, high end Aspen’s attempts at appearing green. Other resorts mentioned: Sunshine Village, Kicking Horse and Revelstoke.

Take a gander over the article by clicking here.

It’s a been proven that this trend will continue if we don’t all become smarter about how we interact with our environment. But if we harness our collective energy and put forth a focused effort, we can have a direct influence on reversing the damage that’s been done and ensure that winters are here for generations behind us.

Protect Our Winters (POW) is on Mother Nature’s side. POW is a non-profit organization dedicated to -you guessed it- protecting our winters. Their passion and dedication to reversing the global warming crisis by bringing together everyone in the ski and snowboard community is inspiring. POW was formed in 2007 by world class professional snowboarder, Jeremy Jones.

Climate change directly effects the ski and snowboard industry and resorts around the world are working to become more “green”. To learn how you can help or simply read more about POW, head to the Protect Our Winters website.

To stay in the know on POW’s climate change initiatives or events, you can follow POW on Twitter (@protectwinters) or become a fan on Facebook.

A typical day for Palmer entails answering a lot of phone calls, providing a lot of basic information about the resort, dealing with community relations, planning events, setting up media familiarization trips and writing press releases.

To read more about Ross Palmer and what it takes to get into the ski PR industry, click here.

1. Just like snowflakes, people who work in the media are all unique and different. It is important that you take the time to get to know them as individuals so you can provide information that is targeted to their interests and niche publications.
2. Pick up the telephone and call media people when you have a good story or when you read a good story they’ve written. E-mails are great but you cannot totally rely on them for building relationships. Telephone calls and face-to-face time are what it takes for long-term relationships.
3. The best PR professionals develop real relationships with journalists. You don’t necessarily have to be best friends, but it’s important that you know them as people, and that they know you. That’s the foundation of trust. They’ll call you for information only if they trust you. If you lose their trust by being dishonest, you will never be successful in this business.
4. Always return phone calls from the media promptly, even if you don’t have an answer to their question. Find out what their deadline is for the information and tell them you’ll get back to them before their deadline. Then follow through. Again, this all comes back to trust. If you don’t follow through, they won’t trust you.
5. News releases are like the heartbeat of your organization. You’ve got to keep putting out releases in order to assure journalists that your resort is alive and well. They might not use every one of your releases, but they’ll see your resort’s name, and your name, and will be reminded that you exist. Even if they’re not interested in that particular release, they might be more inclined to think of you as a resource the next time they are working on a story.
6. As for determining whether to provide discounts or comps, you need to look at what the journalist has produced in the past, and if they’re freelancers, what they are doing to promote themselves now. With media outlets shrinking, freelancers now are like one-person sales and marketing organizations. Talk to the journalist about their outlets, ask for their website address or their blog address, review their clips, and decide whether their outlets align with your resort’s targeted media. They might only write for one small weekly newspaper, but if that newspaper is in your target market, then it’s probably a good idea to host them or provide a media rate.
7. How do you assess journalists who write for websites?  You can ask for number of unique visitors to the site. They should have that kind of information, and if they don’t, you should encourage them to get it. Don’t use the term ‘hits,’ as that is irrelevant. (It’s a red flag if they tell you about the number of hits!) One page on a website could represent hundreds of hits, because a hit means that a person moused over a graphic image. Unique visitors is the critical number.  Compare that to circulation of a newspaper or magazine. Ask the journalist for trends in visitation on the site. Is it increasing? Is the site professional looking? You need to learn to evaluate websites as more writers are shifting their writing online. Again, if the demographic of the website’s visitors aligns with your targeted market, then you should consider extending courtesies to the journalists writing for that site.
8. You should have a profile of your target market and a list of the publications in that target market. You should be proactively going after journalists from those publications (or websites or TV shows or radio shows).  PR is PRoactive, as well as reactive. It’s important to react to calls from the media, but it’s also important to reach out and make contacts at media outlets that appeal to your targeted demographic.
9. If a journalist gets the story wrong, do not reprimand them, but it is a good idea to contact them to straighten the record. Journalists want to tell the truth, so it’s important to follow up and correct erroneous information. In the interest in preserving a relationship, however, you need to reach out in a courteous and professional manner.
10. Say thank you to journalists who provide coverage about your resort. A written thank you note and/or a phone call are the best ways to say thank you. An email is OK, but does not show the extent of effort on your part that a phone call or a written note does. Written thank you notes are so rare in this day and age, that if you take the time to do it, you’ll really stand out in the crowd.

This video is just under ten minutes long and discusses how the United States’ largest resort company, Vail Resorts, has literally abandoned all of their traditional advertising tactics. Ditching their old strategies and making room for social media and other digital venues has opened up doors of endless possibilities to engage skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts in realtime.

As the media landscape changes, Vail Resorts finds itself having to adapt as well, forcing itself to find alternative advertising approaches. Introducing: Social Media.

CEO of Vail Resorts, Rob Katz, goes on to explain that the combination of our changing economic state as well as the rise of social media make “Ski Porn” a very effective means to attract visitors to resorts. Ski Porn is not to be confused with anything provocative or scandalous, this term applies to video clips uploaded online to sites such as YouTube to get avid skiers and snowboarders hyped up for your resort or the coming ski season ahead. Youtube allows these videos to be delivered or advertised by resorts to their particular audience.

Visitors used to decide their travel plans up to 8 months in advance, but with the changing economy the booking window has lowered to just 3 weeks in advance! The medium of social media, as opposed to print advertising in various ski publications, in turn allows resorts to pass their messaging along quicker and enables people to book trips last minute.

Marketing departments at the many Vail Resorts owned mountains are saving up to 80% of their advertising budgets because of reduction in print costs in various ski publications. These departments are now running on a nearly week-by-week advertising calendar as opposed to long-lead traditional media practices.

It is evident that social media has changed the way resorts advertise, but until watching this video I didn’t comprehend the vast degree in which the marketing and public relations approach must adapt as well. AdAge distributes the About Digital report and the video can be seen by clicking here

Whistler Blackcomb recently added this video to YouTube to get avid skiers and snowboarders stoked on experiencing their snowiest November on record. My version of “Ski Porn”: