DIGITAL

BEST LEMONADE MADE FROM REAL LEMONS: BLUE MOUNTAIN, PENN.

It's almost like a sad joke. What does a ski area promote in the winter when there's no snow? The answer for Blue Mountain was: everything else! Instead of hiding behind closed doors, it faced the challenge head-on and tackled the lack of snow in its ads, social media, and email newsletters. Faced with lots of green grass, it started promoting the aerial park and laser tag courses with spring-like photos. To generate traffic and buzz, it kept the early season sales going and offered dining specials, which is unheard of in a normal season around the holidays. —S.R.

BEST LEMONADE MADE FROM REAL LEMONS (TIE): PEAKN' PEAK, N.Y.

What does Peak'n Peak talk about when there's no snow? Food and drinks. Maybe with the hope that people can drink away their sorrows. By staying proactive through email newsletters and on social media, the area stayed accessible to guests and highlighted the best it had to offer. Kudus to the marketing department for making lemonade out of lemons. —S.R.

BEST USE OF A FAKE APOLOGY: SUGARBUSH, VT.

Typos. Is there any faster way to get a response to your content? Nowadays, the Internet police are on duty 24/7, just waiting to call you out. So use them to your advantage. Say that you made a mistake, even if you didn't, and watch what happens. Sugarbush employed this tactic in order to get more eyeballs on good news about a storm over-performing expectations. The email blast, headlined with the word “CORRECTION,” grabbed my eyes, as well as a data-set-proven large chunk of readers. What needed correcting? The snowfall total—it kept going up. But the subject line implied the resort was on bended knee apologizing, which stood out far better than any celebratory message would. The inbox open rate struggle is real. Stay creative! —A.K.

BEST "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" MESSAGE: JAY PEAK, VT.

During one of the warmest starts to a Vermont winter on record, Jay Peak was barely keeping its lifts spinning. But instead of bemoaning its snowless fate, the resort recognized that its community was struggling even more than it was. For 15 days, the resort highlighted local businesses near the resort that all make Jay vacations unique. Everything from pubs and inns to souvenir shops and doggie day care were featured in a dedicated post shared with all of Jay's 60,000+ fans on Facebook. All sincerely appreciated the goodwill, the snow eventually came, and they made it through. Together. —G.B.

MOST INSENSITIVE MARKETING: SKI SNOW VALLEY, ONT.

It's one thing to poke fun at beginners who haven't yet learned the unwritten rules of ski culture, but it's another thing entirely to do so from a resort account. Ontario's Ski Snow Valley has not just embraced mocking newbies, but added reposted “Jerry of the Day” photos and videos to its regular content lineup. Our sport is struggling to grow its numbers and is heavily reliant on non-core skiers. Making these valuable guests the punch line of inside jokes, and then sharing those jabs on channels these people are following along is, to put it kindly, a very dangerous road. —G.B.

MOST INSENSITIVE FACEBOOK POST: HERMITAGE CLUB, VT.

Uncrowded slopes and non-existent lift lines are a couple of the benefits that come with joining a “private” ski hill. But even membership would agree that there's a time and a place to boast about those benefits. Using a national holiday that celebrates a man who fought for equality and to end segregation is not one of them. The day after MLK Monday, Hermitage Club posted a photo with two images on it and the headline, “Skiing on MLK Weekend 2016.” The left side showed a long lift line and was marked “Public.” The right side showed no lift line at Hermitage's ski hill, marked “Private.” One commenter said it best: “Is it really appropriate to tout exclusivity on MLK day?” Probably not. —D.M.

BEST TERRAIN PARK REBRAND: BLUE MOUNTAIN, PA.

Blue Mountain has a steadily increasing community of freestyle savants, and to acknowledge this unique subset of the mountain's constituency the resort separately branded its parks for the 2015-16 season. The new logo is inclusive of both snowboarding and skiing and features the Pennsylvania keystone. In addition, the park crew started a terrain park-specific Instagram account, @bluemountainparks, which immediately got traction. The park crew, mountain marketing, and local riders use it to speak directly to the people who want to spend their time launching jumps and hitting metal. The #bluemountainparks hashtag further increased interaction. Very quickly, the park community at Blue has a popular digital home. —M.W.

BEST WINTER HYPE IN AUTUMN: BRIGHTON, UTAH

Skiers and riders around the Wasatch Mountains exude a palpable impatience to make turns that hangs electrically in the atmosphere once temps start dropping in early fall. Last October, the marketing squad at Brighton partnered with local pro snowboarders Ted Borland and Alex Andrews to green light the Bone Zone—a DIY, pre-season training ground built by area locals out of repurposed logs. Brighton, Ted, and Alex worked with SNOWBOARDER Magazine on a Bone Zone website that hosted videos, photos and social media content featuring the swarms of skiers and riders hitting the park. The site was a hub of pre-winter excitement in October and November, a time of the year when little in-season content was being released. —M.W.

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR AWARD: RED MOUNTAIN, B.C.

Not that I was in the market to book a cat skiing trip to B.C., but an email from Red Mountain that came just before Christmas—when I was wearing a t-shirt here in Vermont—had me seriously interested. The email featured a sweet powder shot, boasts of big snow, a hilarious lead sentence, and what looked like a great deal for cat skiing and lodging. My index finger was ready to click to learn more. But alas, the big red box with all the package details wasn't clickable. Nor was the banner image. And the CTA, a few scrolls down telling me it was the “Last Call to Save”? That was for real estate. Making people work too hard to find info can deter them from booking. Maybe next time. —D.M.