[00:00:00] Tom Kelly: Today on Last Chair, we are up at 8700 feet at the Needles Lodge at Snowbasin. My guest today, Michael Rueckert, the Marketing Director for Snowbasin. Michael, thanks for the invitation to come on up here to Needles Lodge today. Hey, thanks.

[00:00:14] Michael Rueckert: Tom, it's a beautiful day. Big fan of the podcast and I'm so excited to be here.

[00:00:17] Tom Kelly: Let's just talk about the day. It is really stunning. We're recording this the last week of February. Still plenty of ski season left, but it is bluebird and it is nice out there today.

[00:00:27] Michael Rueckert: It's nice. You know, it feels a little bit like a spring day here. We just got, you know, plenty of snow throughout the last few weeks of February. Sun just came out. It's really looking like that beautiful spring skiing conditions that are coming up.

[00:00:39] Tom Kelly: Yeah. Just before we dive into things, we're going to talk about marketing. We're going to talk about awards that Snowbasin has been winning. But I want to just talk a minute about this beautiful lodge, one of many up here in the mountain, John Paul Lodge, just a short distance away. But these are really remarkable on-mountain lodges, unlike really any other resorts.

[00:01:00] Michael Rueckert: Oh, yeah, Snowbasin really is in a class of their own. As far as the facilities and amenities, the lodges here were built just prior to the 2002 Olympics, and our company is the parent company of Snowbasin is Grand America Hotels and Resorts. And anyone that knows the Grand America Hotel downtown in Salt Lake knows. You know, that's really kind of the nicest accommodations in the state. And so you take that class and that elegance and that sophistication, you put it in a mountain environment, and that's what you get at Snowbasin these gorgeous, would, you know, lodges with Italian chandeliers. And it is stunning. You have to really experience it to, to really see it.

[00:01:35] Tom Kelly: Skiers generally aren't ones to necessarily measure the quality of the bathrooms at resorts, but pretty high level here.

[00:01:42] Michael Rueckert: They're very high level. You know, last year we were a finalist for America's Best Restroom. It's an award that there's like ten finalists every year. And we came up as the runner-up for the best restroom in America.

[00:01:53] Tom Kelly: So, who beat you?

[00:01:54] Michael Rueckert: You know, it was a I think it was a bar in Baltimore or a restaurant in Baltimore or something like that. So, you know, I thought we should have one. You got.

[00:02:02] Tom Kelly: To reach out to these dudes I know.

[00:02:04] Michael Rueckert: Right? I know, right?

[00:02:04] Tom Kelly: Send them a poster. Yeah, just send something to put up. Send them a poster of a stall down at Earl's Lodge. Send that out to the bar in Baltimore.

[00:02:11] Michael Rueckert: You know, we've actually thought about doing marketing campaigns just around the restrooms.

[00:02:14] Tom Kelly: Well, you could I tell you that. What is a nice date here at Snowbasin? We're here to talk about awards. This has been a Bountiful year for Snowbasin. Can you kind of walk through some of the awards you've won this year?

[00:02:26] Michael Rueckert: Of course. Yeah, it has been, you know, a culmination point, I think, of a trajectory of brand growth that we've had this year leading into the 24, 25 season. We were ranked number one by Ski magazine. We were ranked number one by USA Today. Outside Magazine also put us at number one. And so it's been just tons of momentum going into the year. And it's this kind of nice, gratifying discovery for our mountain and starting to get the recognition that it really deserves.

[00:02:54] Tom Kelly: You know, sometimes I think awards just happen to come by. But what really struck me here when I looked at the progression that you've made, particularly in the ski magazine poll, which is generally regarded as the Bible for skiers. You're number one in that right now. Utah has a long history of doing really well in that poll. But you you made this really big progression over the last five years.

[00:03:18] Michael Rueckert: We have we have, you know, we back when I first started around 2019, we were consistently in the 20s. You know, Snowbasin has always been regarded as one of the better ski resorts in the country. But I think awareness probably didn't fully match the quality that our operation and that this mountain provides. And we've really seen a surge of growth in reputation and awareness over the last five years. I think we went from 30 to 8. I think we dropped down to 12 and then we were two, and then this year we ranked number one. So it's been a nice steady increase of rankings.

[00:03:52] Tom Kelly: We're going to dive into this as we get into the podcast. But what really struck me is how strategic this was. We're going to get back to that in a minute. But for those who may not know how these rankings work, let's take the ski magazine poll, which is generally the most highly regarded by skiers. How do those rankings work?

[00:04:08] Michael Rueckert: Definitely. So, SKI Magazine is a reader-result survey. Their methodology is they represent hundreds of thousands of skiers across the country. They are the leading voice of this industry, and this has been going on for years and years. You know, it used to be the old magazines and now it's online. But every year, they do a reader resort survey, and readers will go online and they'll say where they skied over the course of the last year and how good the experience was. And Snowbasin has really risen up in those ranks as we've had more skiers come and, you know, more importantly, they love the experience.

[00:04:43] Tom Kelly: Utah has historically done very well. Deer Valley was at the top for a number of years this year. Snowbird, Solitude, Alta. All with really good rankings. Is there something about Utah and the quality of the experience here that that, you know, we're seeing with these polls?

[00:05:00] Michael Rueckert: I mean, Utah's definitely. … It's an incredibly accessible ski destination. We do a lot of skiers here, which means there's a lot of people out there voting and ranking as highly ski magazine in their in their survey, they have six categories. And it's everything from snow quality, which Utah does very well in accessibility. The lifts, the terrain, the service ambience, all the different categories. And they weight the true skiing categories highest. So snow and grooming and you know more the on-mountain experience versus the the opera and kind of lodging experience. They weight the skiing experience higher and Utah does very well in that space, compared to, you know, a lot of neighboring states and neighboring areas. So Utah has always come out well and Snowbasin has, you know, luckily for us, been on top of Utah in these rankings for the last few years.

[00:05:55] Tom Kelly: Do you have friendly conversations with your colleagues at the other resorts about how you're doing in the polls, and what worked for you?

[00:06:02] Michael Rueckert: You know, we don't, but it's it's always a fun grand reveal when the rankings do come out. And, you know, the first thing I look at is, okay, where's Snowbasin? And then I quickly skim and see where everybody else in Utah comes in. And I'm incredibly competitive by nature. And, you know, we certainly love to be on top, but we also love to see other Utah ski resorts ranked well because we're, you know, we're all we're all teammates, people. People visit Utah to ski multiple resorts. And so the kind of strength of everybody helps each other.

[00:06:31] Tom Kelly: Did you hear from some of the other resorts after you won the award?

[00:06:35] Michael Rueckert: You know, I had I had a few text messages and some emails here and there. Yeah, we definitely heard a few things, and there was a bunch of congratulations.

[00:06:41] Tom Kelly: Well, Michael, let's talk a little bit more about your background. I know you've been at Snowbasin since 2019, but give us a little 411 on what you've been up to in your career.

[00:06:49] Michael Rueckert: Yeah. Of course. You know, I started in sports marketing. I went to the University of Utah. At the University of Utah, I was president of the student section and college sports marketing was. It was kind of my passion and what I wanted to do. Um, I started out I did a season with the Salt Lake Bees interning with them, and then a role opened up with University of Utah. I was a junior going into my senior year of college. Hadn't graduated yet. You know, the role required a degree. And, you know, I was told I was not ready for it. So I offered to do the job for free and ended up getting an in at the University of Utah, worked in their athletic department for about six years. I oversaw marketing for 12 sports over that span. You know, everything from baseball to Olympic sports, skiing, tennis, volleyball. But the majority of my time was spent running marketing for Utah football and University of Utah gymnastics. I did that for about 4 or 5 years. It was great, I loved it. We had a ton of success there. We, you know, at Utah football grew the sellout streak to, I think like 57 games expanded the stadium. That was a big $8,080 million stadium expansion at University of Utah Gymnastics. We led the country in attendance, set some records that haven't quite been broken yet, which is great to still see, but I ultimately was looking for a change of scenery and, you know, no better change of scenery than coming into the to the mountains. Right?

[00:08:11] Tom Kelly: So, big scenery here?

[00:08:12] Michael Rueckert: Big, big scenery. You know, you guys are listening. But the view outside of the window where we're sitting right now is, is gorgeous. I was looking for a change of pace and a change of scenery, and, I sought out the ski industry, and I've loved it. And I've been here since. Since 2019.

[00:08:28] Tom Kelly: I want to go back to your very first gig with the student section known as The MUSS. And you were the president of the MUSS? Yes. What was entailed in that job?

[00:08:37] Michael Rueckert: Yeah, it's it's it's kind of like it's sports marketing in a smaller category. Um, our job is to our job was to increase student attendance, increase engagement, atmosphere at games and really just try to drive liveliness, right? So we're trying to grow the amount of students going to games. And we had a lot of success there. The NCAA ranked the Mus in the top five when I was president there. And anyone that knows college sports and follows the University of Utah football knows the Mus is just an incredible student section. And that was a ton of fun. And it was my first taste into sports marketing. As you grow attendance and grow awareness and grow the experience.

[00:09:17] Tom Kelly: So I went to the University of Wisconsin a few years ago and our student section was amazing. Did that factor in? Did … does Wisconsin still factor into top college student sections?

[00:09:28] Michael Rueckert: They definitely do. You know you have to jump around at Wisconsin. We have the third down jump at the University of Utah. Kind of a similar tradition there. But yeah, whenever you look at top-ranked student sections Wisconsin is always, always in there. You know, Utah is there. You'll see like Florida and Penn State LSU. And you know, there's a handful of kind of classic programs that are. But University of Utah is probably one of the smaller at least student sections to make those lists. And so it's a very, you know, unified and mighty as in the name mighty Utah student section implies.

[00:10:01] Tom Kelly: One of the awards that you received, we haven't talked about yet, but last year you received Utah Businesses Marketing Disruptor of the year. And just having watched what you've done here at Snowbasin, I think the disruptor part is really important. It's really important as a marketer today, isn't it? How what did that award mean to you, and how does that typify what really you've brought to kind of a modern look at marketing as ski resort?

[00:10:25] Michael Rueckert: Definitely. I you know, I like that modern look where you describe it because when I first came into the ski industry, I felt like I came in from the outside. I came in from college sports. And it's similar. The business models are very similar. We're selling tickets and season, you know, season tickets and single game tickets, and your event experience matters and concession stands, and retail. And it's the same business model. But I kind of felt like I came into it from a little bit of a different perspective, probably a little bit more of a competitive perspective. As sports kind of grooms you for that. But, you know, it was really gratifying to receive that recognition for the work that just our team has accomplished over the last five years. Um, you know, we feel like we have disrupted the Utah marketing scene or the Utah ski scene a little bit. Snowbasin has grown in Salt Lake, and we've grown in awareness. And these number one rankings, and this is kind of us coming in and planting our flag as a brand and, you know, saying who we are and why we're special.

[00:11:21] Tom Kelly: I want you to talk about Snowbasin today. I've been coming here for over 30 years now. And the particularly in the last five years, dramatic change in the resort with addition of new lifts and new terrain. Talk to us about what Snowbasin is today. The lifts, the lodges, the skiing, the snowboarding.

[00:11:38] Michael Rueckert: Of course, Snowbasin has really done things right. I think as far as how it has evolved and grown. You know, Snowbasin had a had a major transformation in 2002. Prior to the Olympics, there were several lifts built, multiple lodges built, and it really laid the groundwork for just an amazing world class infrastructure, which sets us up to be the number one ranked ski resort right now. But we have continued to evolve and improve our experience. We this summer will be adding our fourth lift in in six years. We have expanded parking. We've held very firm to keeping parking free, no reservations required, and very accessible. So we've really tried to hang on to that kind of pillar of our brand of being very accessible and introducing people to the sport. We have seen just tremendous satisfaction among our our audience for the last four years. We've seen our consumer satisfaction rise, our net promoter scores have been rising, and it's just this top-notch operation that our team puts on very common vision for building the best ski experience that we could possibly do. And, you know, from the mountain operations team to ski patrol to everybody here. You know, I think we all have this vision of being the best. And Snowbasin today certainly has just continued to improve is probably the best way I could describe it. I want to.

[00:12:58] Tom Kelly: Dive into a couple of the areas that you've mentioned. First of all, I want to talk about lifts. You've added a lot of new lifts in the last few years. You have more on the drawing board. Right now you're in marketing. How does the discussion go behind the scenes? I'm sure there's an operational discussion, but you probably weigh in on the marketing side too, in terms of what we want to do, what kind of lifts do we want, and how is it going to best serve our guests?

[00:13:20] Michael Rueckert: Yeah, of course. So marketing, we run consumer analytics for the resort. So you know, when you ski Snowbasin and you get the survey, and you leave your comments, it's I'm generally the main person who is kind of digesting those and relaying that feedback back to the team. So, you know, I definitely think about things from a marketing lens on, hey, you know, this would really help us here and this would help us there. We're very focused on differentiators and what makes us special compared to other ski resorts. Everybody has pine trees and groomers and cheeseburgers and snow. So, what makes you different? And that's something that we've really focused on. And so lifts are certainly a way that we could do that. And so I certainly chime in my my thoughts and opinions there. But I think probably more importantly in that category is I represent the voice of our guests, um, thousands of survey responses. I read them, I advocate for them. Every week in our management meeting, we go over consumer insights, and we say, hey, in the last wee,k these were the pinch points. This is where this is where we excelled. Maybe this is where we struggled a little bit. This is what the skiers want. So, we monitor what they're saying on social media and in the survey. And we relay that back to the operation. And, ultimately a lot of those things result in new lifts or new trails or other enhancements that may come to the resort.

[00:14:33] Tom Kelly: The other area I want to talk about, maybe uninteresting on its face is parking lots, but I think parking lots are really representative of the culture of a resort. You can go around to the Utah resorts. Each resort has its own culture in the parking lot this morning. You know, I'm in I'm in the lot at Earl's, and I'm looking at a guy who's got a pickup truck that's completely rigged out with a a whole kitchen that comes out of the back. He just rolls it out, sits down in his chair, and he makes himself breakfast on the stove. Can you talk a little bit about the culture of when people come here to Snowbasin, they're with their families, they're getting ready for a day. And what's that experience like in that hour before they go out and ski?

[00:15:12] Michael Rueckert: Oh, it's awesome. You know, it kind of reminds me of when I did college football marketing at the University of Utah. You know, the big tailgate scene that you see before a football game. You see that a little bit here, and you see that a little bit here at the ski resort as well. And ultimately people are buying an experience when they come here. Right. It's on-mountain is part of it. What happens in the parking lot is part of it. Your experience driving to the resort, your interactions with staff, all of this is just part of the experience. And this is why this is why we all do this. So, you know, we have great food. We have great breakfast. We love when people, you know, dine in our restaurants. But at the same time, we love seeing it out in the parking lot as well. And it's just it adds to that ambiance of that experience and what makes coming outside very special. Yeah.

[00:15:54] Tom Kelly: The other thing that that strikes me whenever I come up here are the families and the kids. I know. We're we're actually, I don't know. Are we on school break right now? There were a lot of kids out there this morning. I don't think we're on school break.

[00:16:06] Michael Rueckert: So the University of Utah spring break is coming up in a week. Um, I think elementary school is coming up fairly soon, but, you know, there's a lot of homeschooling, and you always see, I'm sure people have missed school. You see kids up here all the time.

[00:16:17] Tom Kelly: Well, the second half of our podcast, we're going to talk about some of the specific marketing campaigns that you put in place to get up to that number-one spot in SKI Magazine. But before we do that, I want to go back a little bit. When you came here in 2019 and I've been coming here to Snowbasin since 1988, so I've got my paradigm of what it's been. But but you, you really found, uh, I mean, you sent me some notes on how you perceive Snowbasin when you came here in 2019, what was kind of the groundwork that you started with and will make that the foundation and then talk about what you did?

[00:16:51] Michael Rueckert: Yeah, of course. So I came from the University of Utah. I was I was fairly embedded into the Salt Lake outdoor scene there. And when I came to Snowbasin, everybody thought I was going to Snowbird. I think Snowbasin had very good awareness of anyone north of Salt Lake City, had very good awareness of your die-hard skiers and snowboarders. But I think beyond your very dedicated audience and your in your local community that lived north of Salt Lake, I think awareness was lacking. When I when I came here, it was I heard I've heard all kinds of, you know, adjectives about the resort, like it's a sleeping giant or it's a hidden gem or a best kept secret. And those are all those are all great things. When you're a skier and you're looking for, you know, your that secret place that you could go. But when you're when you're running a business and it's an expensive business and you're trying to make it sustainable and privately owned, … you need to see growth and you need to see bigger awareness than that. And so that that really became one of the big opportunities that I circled from day one is like, okay, so many places in marketing or so many places just in business, things are overhyped or things are not what you think they're going to be. And Snowbasin was opposite. It was it was this experience that was absolutely top-notch. But the reputation didn't quite match that. And so that made just an incredibly compelling opportunity. So then it became how do we tell the mountain story and how do we tell it in a way that separates it and makes it stand out from the ten other places people could choose to ski within an hour of Salt Lake City.

[00:18:19] Tom Kelly: You came here shortly after Davy Ratchford came over here from Park City Mountain. I think you knew Davy from, prior engagements. So you really were starting with fresh leadership here when you came in as a young marketer, looking at this place a little bit differently, how what was the process to kind of think about the brand, maybe in a new and different way from what it had been thought about for many years.

[00:18:44] Michael Rueckert: Definitely. You know, first of all, Davy coming to Snowbasin was my inspiration to come into the ski industry. I had been at the University of Utah for 5 or 6 years, and I was just looking for growth and what's my next opportunity. And I had a fairly narrow mindset of, I want to do sports marketing, and there weren't a crazy amount of opportunities in that. And so I started to kind of open up my mind to other possibilities. And the ski industry was one of those. And when I was researching the ski industry, I actually came across an article in Powder magazine about Dave. And it was right after Dave had been hired as general manager, and he had talked about his transition from Real Salt Lake, and he was the director of marketing at Real Salt Lake. And that was the inspiration for me. I'm like, okay, you know, if he went from real Salt Lake to the ski industry, I could go from Utah football to the ski industry. It's a very similar path. And so, you know, Dave was kind of the inspiration to bring me here. And then, you know, just thinking about what makes us different.

[00:19:39] Michael Rueckert: It was a lot of whiteboard activities and it was like, how do we position ourselves compared to everybody else? It's whiteboard activities on, you know, if we're ranking all the Utah ski resorts in snowfall, where do we come in? If we're ranking all the Utah ski resorts in accessibility, where do we come in? What makes us special? Is it the lodges? Is it the grooming? Is it the food? Is it the service? And ultimately, we circled a handful of things on. This makes us special compared to everybody else, because we all offer snow. We all offer lifts and pine trees and cheeseburgers, and ultimately everyone, everyone offers skiing. So why? So why us versus them? And so we circled all those differentiators and that kind of packaged into our first brand campaign, which we called What If. And we tried to position Snowbasin like this utopia where all the problems that they may see at other ski resorts don't exist here. And it's it's almost too good to be true. And what if there's a place that has all of these things in one place?

[00:20:33] Tom Kelly: Did you I know, I know, there were a lot of people here at Snowbasin, employees at Snowbasin who had been here for a long time. Did you find a receptive audience to kind of changing the mindset about the resort?

[00:20:44] Michael Rueckert: Definitely. You know, I don't think we positioned Snowbasin in a way that didn't fit. So I think everybody fit. Everybody was on board with the way we started talking about the resort. I think it just became identifying those unique selling points that Snowbasin had and packaging them into one beautiful, cohesive message. And, you know, I think with a brand, when you when you hit it right, everybody really is on board with it. And so when we built our first campaign, I think everybody loved it. I think it spoke to the magic of the mountain and it fit. It wasn't like we were trying to do something that Snowbasin wasn't. And so when, when, when it kind of strikes the right tone like that, you have you have great buy in authenticity. Exactly.

[00:21:24] Tom Kelly: We're going to be right back on Last Chair. We're up at Needles Lodge at Snowbasin 8700ft. It is a beautiful ski day. We're with Michael Rueckert, the director of marketing for Snowbasin and Grand America. We'll be right back on Last Chair.

[00:21:50] Tom Kelly: We're back on Last Chair today. Up at 8700 feet at Needles Lodge at Snowbasin. Gorgeous day outside. I'm at least kind of anxious to get out and ski. You probably have to go to the office, Michael.

[00:22:01] Michael Rueckert: Yeah, yeah. You know, I try to sneak out as much as I can, but it's a Monday. It's going to be. It's going to be a busy day, people.

[00:22:07] Tom Kelly: People think you work at a ski resort. You're out there every day. But it's not quite like that, is it?

[00:22:12] Michael Rueckert: No, I actually don't ski. Nearly as everyone's always shocked when they hear how much I ski. I, I think this season I've been about 5 or 6 times. It's you get here, and it's business, and you just have a you have a different mindset.

[00:22:22] Tom Kelly: Yeah. I want to dive into some of your campaigns, but first let's just talk about the planning process again a little bit. When you got here in 2019, you guys said you actually strategically set your sight on the awards, didn't you?

[00:22:35] Michael Rueckert: We did. We did. So much Of marketing is a brand saying this and a brand saying that, and there's not a lot of credibility and trust there. And so when you have other people telling your story for you, it really builds a lot of a lot of trust. And so that's something that we have really focused on. We have a big PR strategy where we we bring in media every year. We fly them in from major media outlets. We had a travel and leisure piece about a month ago just as an example. So, we really focus on having influential voices experience the mountain. And, you know, they then go on and talk greatly about us or we win awards. It's something that, as we move into this era of AI-based recommendation as well, I think is going to be a growing need where people are going to be looking to AI tools to decide where they want to ski or decide where they want to go on vacation. And those those types of models. I've actually I'm actually building a software right now where I'm doing a little bit of research with Snowbasin. It's not just about what the brand says. It's well, what are the rankings say? What do Reddit threads say? What do people say on TripAdvisor? And it's kind of the whole conglomerate of what people think about a resort. And so awards are certainly one pillar that we've really focused on, and we've made it a big priority in our marketing strategy so that other people are telling the same story as us.

[00:23:58] Tom Kelly: I'm just kind of curious, how much is I starting to factor into ski resort marketing?

[00:24:03] Michael Rueckert: You know, it's we use it. We use it a lot at Snowbasin for efficiency and optimization, and I use it to analyze our consumer engagement surveys. We use it to track lots of different metrics. I think you haven't seen it in a whole lot of ski marketing beyond just optimization for copy and ideas and brainstorming and so forth. Something that I think is going to be a growing need in the future is, you know, there's been this whole industry of marketing called SEO search engine optimization. You're optimizing your website. So when people Google you, you pop up to the top. What? What happens when people are not searching on Google? What happens when they're searching on on AI models? And so that's something I've been thinking a lot about. Snowbasin. I've actually built this software. It's something I'm just kind of messing with right now, where it's plugged a thousand search prompts into five different AI models, and I'm measuring what AI thinks about Snowbasin and how does it get its information, and how can we position ourselves for the future. And awards are one of those things that is like rising to the top when you when you circle, okay, how did they come to a recommendation versus a ski magazine and other, you know, industry voices?

[00:25:13] Tom Kelly: Yeah. It's fascinating. We could do a whole podcast on that. I want to talk about Multi-pass exposure. You're one of the few resorts in the country that has been on, really each of the top three pass programs. You're presently on Ikon, you were on epic, and you're presently on Mountain Collective, a long time on Mountain Collective. So how has that helped you to expose the Snowbasin brand to a broader range of skiers and snowboarders.

[00:25:36] Michael Rueckert: Absolutely. It's created a trial. And this is a big part of our journey as a brand is people need to come in and experience it. It's hard to have an affiliation and an attachment to a brand that you haven't experienced. Snowbasin is the type of place where when people come, the experience is top notch, and just the operation that we put on and the quality of our grooming, and just everything that the mountain experience provides, it hooks people and makes them come back. But we've got to get them there for the first time. And these partner passes have been a great source of trial for us. So we were on epic for three years. We've been on Ikon for three years. We've been on the Mountain Collective as well, and that has exposed us to just a big audience of people that get to come trial us. And with these partner passes, people aren't skiing a crazy amount of days. The average person is skiing maybe 1 or 2 days a year at your resort. It's it's just a whole lot of sampling, a whole lot of trial. And for us in marketing it, you know, one, it's helped us in brand awareness where we, you know, these people when they take these ski magazine surveys, at the end of the year, they rate us favorably, and they have a good experience, and it really helps us grow and it has helped our reputation. It's a little bit of a network effect. But then in marketing, these are prime audiences that we've circled for becoming snowbasin pass holders. And it's kind of that trial product that introduces someone to the mountain. And then eventually, they became a diehard Snowbasin pass holder when they love the experience here. So it's been great for our business to just reach new people and really build awareness for ourselves.

[00:27:03] Tom Kelly: So you are on the Ikon Pass now, but your own Snowbasin season passes are still a pretty vital product for you within the community.

[00:27:12] Michael Rueckert: Here. Of course, it's our most important product. Our core pass holders are the circled, the most important audience we have. You know, every year when we put season passes on sale, that's one of my biggest campaigns. We're going to be doing this here in about a week or two. But pass holders are, you know, the dedicated supporters of a ski resort. They are they're pre-committed revenue for a ski resort. So whatever the snow conditions are there, they're a huge part of what we do and an incredibly valuable audience to us that we look very closely at on how we can make them as happy as possible.

[00:27:46] Tom Kelly: Let's talk about the fun stuff, the campaigns that you've put together over the last few years. You referenced the What If campaign earlier, and I was looking at some of the creative on that and the two little sisters just out exploring the resort and just kind of in their minds, asking themselves, what if? What's the creative process that goes on to put together a campaign like that?

[00:28:05] Michael Rueckert: Yeah. As a marketing leader, you need to surround yourself with really good talent. And when I first came to Snowbasin, we it was a it was a very small marketing team of two people besides me. We didn't have a dedicated creative position and it was one of my first things is we, added Brooks, who has been with Snowbasin now for five and a half years. He's our brand manager. All the amazing content you see on social media, and a lot of our imagery and video is coming from him and the lens of his camera, and you really need to invest in creative. And so we've developed a really strong internal creative presence with Brooks and the rest of the marketing team and then agency work as well. A good friend of mine, his name is Cooper. He runs Doxey Street Creative. He did a lot of the creative work when I was at University of Utah, and we brought him on to Snowbasin. And so this What If campaign was really kind of the first big one we did with them. And as a marketer, you have the things you circle and it's okay, here's the story I want to tell. Here's here's I look at it in the data. I know why people pick snowbasin. I know what makes it special, but you need some creative talent to really help tell that story for you. And so we, you know, went through the research on why Snowbasin and then bring in really talented, creative people and work together and collaborate. And that was the first campaign. It was called What If? And we positioned Snowbasin like a utopia of just amazing, amazing things that you wouldn't think all exist in, in one location, folks.

[00:29:28] Tom Kelly: You'll be able to look at those. We'll put them in the show notes on the blog page at Ski Utah.com. But when you do look at it, you know, I always think kind of, how did this come together operationally? You look at the finished product, you look at these two little girls ripping around Snowbasin, but what's going on behind the scenes to get those little girls who are what are seven, eight, nine, ten years old, whatever to get them to do what you want them to do for the film.

[00:29:54] Michael Rueckert: You know, it's a lot of candy in the pocket, and you're bribing the kids because filming with kids is notoriously difficult. But these girls were amazing. They're sisters. They grew up in Ogden. They've been going to Snowbasin their entire life. And the real inspiration of this campaign is okay. What makes Snowbasin special? And we wanted to tell it through an organic, trustworthy lens of, of our audience. And so we're like, okay, how would a child say these things? How would a child say, Snowbasin has amazing lodges and we called them log castles. And how would a child say, you know, Snowbasin is There's just this incredible place. And, you know, if you watch the video, you'll see different things. Like, you know, the little girls are like, what if we could be here and here and here all in one day? That's a marketing line on variety of terrain. We have amazing variety of terrain at Snowbasin, but how do we say that through the lens of a kid. So it's it's it's being strategic about how we're going to say it. And then once we film, it's it's, you know, the parents are there and you have camera crews and you, you shoot the same thing over and over again. And I think everybody, when they come up for a ski photo or video shoot, they think they're going to be just skiing and going fast and you move incredibly slow. You go 50ft down the hill, position the camera. Someone skis 75 feet past the camera. All right. Stop. Move. Go on to the next shot. It's it's quite the process, but this one turned out just magical. Uh, you know, it's been about four years since we ran this campaign, and I still just get all the feelings when I go back and watch it.

[00:31:21] Tom Kelly: The girls are older now, are they? Do you ever run into them?

[00:31:24] Michael Rueckert: You know, they're passholders here. I should I should follow up with them and and see where they're at now. But I would imagine they're still skiing here, but I haven't seen them for a little while.

[00:31:32] Tom Kelly: They could be in a teen campaign for next year.

[00:31:34] Michael Rueckert: I know right? They had such great talent. I feel like they need to be on the Disney Channel or something.

[00:31:38] Tom Kelly: Let's talk about the Go North campaign. And I remember the first time that I saw one of your billboards in downtown Salt Lake City. I'm heading downtown, northbound on I-15, and there's this billboard with an arrow pointing north, and it's about skiing. And I said, well, that is really interesting. But one would think that with a million people sitting down there, Salt Lake was a huge market for you, but you saw opportunity there.

[00:32:01] Michael Rueckert: We did. And anyone that lives north of Salt Lake, whether you're in Davis County or Weber County, I grew up in Davis County. I'm sure you've experienced this when you interact with people from Salt Lake, but anything north of Salt Lake just sounds incredibly far. And there's this it's almost an invisible barrier. Once you are north of downtown Salt Lake City. People. People will drive to Draper or Harriman or, you know, southern parts of the Salt Lake Valley. No problem. But going north, it just has this barrier. I think it's the geography of Utah, how the mountain kind of sticks out and the Great Salt Lake sticks out, and it creates a little bit of a divide. And so back in, you know, 2019 and prior Snowbasin did really well out of Weber and Davis County and the core local areas to the resort. But Salt Lake was the opportunity. We were certainly underperforming in Salt Lake City. And so it was one of the first things I circled when we came to Snowbasin on how could we grow our brand in this major market and go North was really the cherry on top, I guess you could say, or kind of the coming out party for, for Snowbasin in Salt Lake City. And it was a statement piece and it was a very simple campaign. Go North in two words, alluded to a lot of things. It alluded to an incredible experience, an elevated experience. It's not as far as you think. You know, there's a lot of meaning that we're trying to pack into those two words. And it really helped us plant our flag in Salt Lake City and say, hey, this is Snowbasin. Come check us out.

[00:33:28] Tom Kelly: So I want to talk a little bit about just this whole concept of going north, not just with Snowbasin, but just in general. I grew up in Wisconsin, and I lived in the northern part of Wisconsin for a while. But there was always this mentality when I was growing up that the real nice life nature and everything that was always up north. And I think that's just a paradigm all of us have. So, did that kind of human thinking factor into your creative?

[00:33:54] Michael Rueckert: Of course, of course. You know the North Pole. People associate North with snowy. With winter, there's a lot there. And ultimately, you know, I, I teach a class at the University of Utah, and I was just telling them this, there's there's so many things that we want to say about Snowbasin. You know, we want to say we have amazing lodges and we have some of the best lift systems in the ski industry. We have amazing grooming. It's beautiful. When you're up here, it looks like you're in Switzerland and there's so many things we could say, but you can't say all that in an ad. People don't have the attention span for that, right? You have you have just a few seconds to to grab somebody's attention. So how could we say everything in as few words as possible and go north was the way of doing that. And so, absolutely, it alludes to all those things, you know, North nature getting away. Go venture somewhere different. Try a new experience, blaze your own path just with two words go north. We're saying so much. And that really became a a pillar of the Snowbasin experience.

[00:34:48] Tom Kelly: As a marketer. I know you like to plan out your campaigns, and I know you had a campaign all planned out for this fall, but all of a sudden, you have an opportunity. Ski magazine gives you the number one. There's a few others. How were you able to pivot and change your marketing on the fly this fall to take advantage of that?

[00:35:07] Michael Rueckert: That's that's where success comes from. You need to be agile and ready to pivot and strike while the iron is hot. So we had the Olympics were just announced this summer. You know, Tom, you're very involved with that. And Snowbasin is a venue of the Olympics. And we saw that as our big opportunity to differentiate. And we're always thinking about thinking about differentiating. Everybody offers skiing, everybody offers snow and pine trees, like I keep saying. And it's why us? What makes us special, what makes us different? And the Olympics were the story that we had circled. For that we had a whole campaign we were going to call it go for gold, and we were going to really own being the true alpine ski venue for the Olympics. And then the rankings came out, and as excited as I was to put the Olympic campaign forward, we we pushed it to the side. And, you know, we could do that next year and in future years. You have to seize the moment with the number one ranking because in the 84-year-old history of this resort, it's never been described in such a way. And you have to amplify the message. So, just organically getting number one rankings gets millions of impressions. When SKI Magazine puts it out.

[00:36:10] Michael Rueckert: They have a lot of readers. These all these rankings get shared across media outlets all across the country. You know the local Denver news. We'll talk about where the Denver resorts were ranked and the California news. We'll talk about where the California resorts were ranked. And there's this huge amplification that takes place when any of these rankings happen. And we measured 16 million organic impressions from the rankings. So Ski Magazine and USA today and outside they all ranked Snowbasin number one. And those rankings get spread all across the country, all across other media outlets. And so there's 16 million very, very positive impressions for Snowbasin right there. And then in marketing, it's okay. How can we amplify that. How could we squeeze as much out of this as we possibly can. And associate Snowbasin with greatness. Because, you know, I'd like to think we'll be number one next year. And we certainly back it up that, you know, we I think everybody here has that common vision and believes we are the best and that we will continue to get these rankings. But you don't know when this will happen again. And so we have to seize the moment and capitalize on it. I think working in sports marketing prepared me for this.

[00:37:11] Michael Rueckert: You know, when I did marketing for Utah football, they if they win a big game or they lose a game, just momentum swings very rapidly. You see that in our industry with snow, you have to be ready to to pivot and react to weather in certain conditions. And, this is just one of those things. And so we knew the opportunity of being able to say we're the best is is rare and unique and limited. And we quickly built a campaign with Cooper at Doxey Street. And we went all in, and we are running this campaign across the country right now. It's it's in Utah. It's in some of our key, key markets. It's in California and New York and Texas and places where we know there's a lot of skiers and we know they're not going to ski at Snowbasin maybe this year or next year. But we're planting a seed, and we're moving up what we call in marketing, the marketing funnel, the kind of consideration window. And we're trying to plant that message that we are great. And so in the future, when they're looking at vacations to Utah and where they're going to go skiing, they're going to associate Snowbasin with with greatness.

[00:38:07] Tom Kelly: Let's move on to the Olympics now. In 2002, Snowbasin played a vital role as the site of the downhill and super-G races for the Olympics, and then all of the alpine events for the Paralympics. It's still nine years away, so it is a little bit out there in the future, but Snowbasin this time around will be the site of all of the alpine events for the Olympics, and I imagine there's even nine years out. Is there some good energy being developed here at the resort?

[00:38:33] Michael Rueckert: Oh, absolutely. Everyone here is incredibly excited, and a lot of the team that put on the 2002 Olympics is still here. And, you know, Olympics are a huge part of our brand and a huge part of our core. And everyone here firmly believes we are the best ski resort. And so what better way than to offer the world's best? Right. So we're incredibly excited about it. We'll continue to do the downhill events with the legendary Grizzly Downhill and Wildflower Downhill, which those will be a core part of our marketing leading into the Olympics. Just the legend of those trails. I think that story is probably a little bit untold for us. And then we'll have some new trails and some new terrain. And, you know, we're still finalizing exactly what that's going to look like, but it's going to be really exciting for Snowbasin to host more than we had before.

[00:39:16] Tom Kelly: I want to do a shout-out for both Grizzly and Wildflower. Grizzly was the men's downhill, and Wildflower was the women's. I think a lot of people may have a paradigm that I can't do that, but these are two really ski-able runs that guests can come and they can pretend they're Picabo Street or Bode Miller. Right.

[00:39:35] Michael Rueckert: Exactly. And it's really rare to be able to do that. There's there's three resorts in North America where you could ski the same downhill run that Olympians skied on. And Snowbasin having two competitions for that is just incredibly unique. They are difficult. They're exhilarating. It feels like a roller coaster. I know the first time I hit, I think it was Wildflower Downhill. The middle portion of it just drops off like a roller coaster going over a hill. But it's it's doable. And anyone could do it, and it's there. And it's one of those experiences as you ski Snowbasin leading into the Olympics, you could ski where, you know, Picabo Street, like you mentioned, skied on in 2002, and then future Olympians in 2034 will compete on it. It's just super unique, really exhilarating, challenging but Approachable. People could certainly can, certainly can certainly tackle it.

[00:40:24] Tom Kelly: Michael, it's been fun to talk about these marketing projects. But as you look forward here at Snowbasin over the next couple of years, any things in your bag of tricks you want to highlight?

[00:40:33] Michael Rueckert: Got to keep some things secret, but you know the Olympics are a big part of it. I think as we position our brand for the future, that is certainly going to be that just unique, differentiating thing that we have that other people can't quite say. You know, some can, but not everybody can. And so I think the Olympics are going to be a core part of it. We have new lifts coming in, Becker coming next year. So, the experience will continue to get better. We just announced a few days ago that RFID is coming to the resort, which is a little bit of a dated technology, but we you know, we waited to ensure we were doing what the future is going to have. You know, there's been a lot of talk about Bluetooth and apps and and mobile technology, and we're moving into a system that could sustain that. And so, you know, when you look at Snowbasin, you look at it, you will look at it an experience that will continue to get better, a staff that is fully bought in high-level service and ultimately leading up to this culmination point of, you know, the world's best competing here in nine years.

[00:41:27] Tom Kelly: Great. We're going to head now to Fresh Tracks, our final closing section, a few, uh, wrap up questions for you just to go back to your own background, growing up as a young boy in Utah. Did you have a favorite place to ski or get out and enjoy winter sport?

[00:41:42] Michael Rueckert: So I actually learned how to ski in the backcountry, which is really rare. My grandfather was a bricklayer by profession and in I think it was like the 1960s, he he built a cabin in the Uinta mountains and it's shared amongst my, my family. And it's a very special place to me. As a kid, we used to snowmobile into the cabin. You have to snowmobile about three miles to get to the cabin. So, as a child, I learned how to ski in the backcountry of the Uintas. Certainly, no avalanche gear was maybe a little bit risky, but we would snowmobile out to different hills. And that's where I learned how to ski. I didn't actually touch a Utah ski resort until I was a teenager.

[00:42:17] Tom Kelly: Whereabouts in the Uintas?

[00:42:18] Michael Rueckert: It's in the Christmas Meadows area. So kind of the northern end of the Mirror Lake Highway. Just gorgeous. It's it's heaven.

[00:42:26] Tom Kelly: To get there in the wintertime. You had to go up through Wyoming. Probably you.

[00:42:29] Michael Rueckert: Do. So you go up through Wyoming, through Evanston, and you drop down to they they plow the road up to a certain point. There's a big parking lot there. And then from there you have to snowmobile about 3 or 4 miles into the cabins. There's no running water. You have to boil it. And, you know, it's it's quite the trek. But magical experience.

[00:42:48] Tom Kelly: Builds character, builds.

[00:42:49] Michael Rueckert: Character. So I was doing that as a, you know, eight, nine, ten year old boy. And that's where I learned how to snowboard strapped to my feet and would just go out in the woods of the, of the Uintas.

[00:42:57] Tom Kelly: How about your best powder day experience here at Snowbasin?

[00:43:01] Michael Rueckert: There's been a lot of them. You know, we've had a couple great seasons. I probably don't have a I probably don't have a singular one. But just the entire season, two years ago, when Snowbasin had over 600in of snow, it was a record year for us. Every single day was a powder day. And, um, just getting into the office was we were digging ourselves out. It was it was mind-blowing. We had lifts that were scraping against the bottom of the snow because the snow pack was so deep. Just the whole season of two years ago was certainly that for us.

[00:43:31] Tom Kelly: That was a good one. How about your best rippin groomer run here?

[00:43:35] Michael Rueckert: Rippin groomer run. You know, if you want to go fast. I think the Wildflower Downhill is a really fun one. Grizzly is technically the steeper one if you measure it from the top down, but the middle portion of wildflower is has a very steep pitch. That's that. It's that exhilarating roller coaster where you go along a banked turn that banks left, and then it just drops beneath you and has that roller coaster pit in your stomach feeling, and you hit the bottom, and you go over a few different kind of rollers. And it's fun. It's absolutely exhilarating. Wildflower downhill in the middle. Stretch is my favorite.

[00:44:07] Tom Kelly: When you have a friend coming here for the first time, what's the most impressive viewpoint you take them to on the mountain?

[00:44:15] Michael Rueckert: That's a great question. So there's a lot of those. It's it's different. If you look at Park City and the Cottonwood Canyons, everyone's in this kind of similar scenery at Snowbasin. We're a freestanding mountain, not in a canyon, and we're located on the eastern slope of it. So our scenery is very different, and we are often compared to like the Swiss Alps and things like that. My favorite is at John Paul Lodge. If you're at John Paul Lodge and you're looking out at Mount Ogden and the ridgeline to the south, it's just breathtaking.

[00:44:44] Tom Kelly: Mine's top of strawberry looking down on the valley. It's just I love that backside view, as a marketer, what's the craziest thing you've ever had to promote?

[00:44:54] Michael Rueckert: There's been a lot of crazy things, certainly in the sports marketing days. And I worked in minor league baseball. We, you know, there's all kinds of crazy things that minor league baseball is promoting. But the biggest one that comes to mind is, is Snowbasin started a haunted forest this fall. We called it Haunted Basin, and turning your brain to be a haunted house marketer is certainly a little bit of a mind twist. And, we rolled out this new event and had to really just think differently about creative. And, you know, it's horror. It's scary. It's very, very different from the traditional things we do. So, marketing a haunted forest.

[00:45:28] Tom Kelly: You're an adjunct professor. What advice do you give your University of Utah students who want to dive into the job?

[00:45:34] Michael Rueckert: I tell them that passion really wins the day, and there's a lot of competition when you want to work in an industry like this, whether it's sports or skiing or entertainment or anything in this leisure space, it's very glamorous and a lot of people want to do it. So there's a lot of competition, and I like to really hire on passion and who wants it the most, and any little thing people can do to stand out in the interview process. You know, my first job that I got hired on at the University of Utah, I offered to do it for free. And it's just little things like that. Like, what can you do to stand out that show that you're really hungry and that you really want it? Those are the types of people that I see succeeding in this space.

[00:46:10] Tom Kelly: Good advice. Last question. You're in an elevator. You've got an influential individual who wants to learn about Snowbasin. What do you tell them in 10 to 15 seconds?

[00:46:19] Michael Rueckert: Oh, you know, 10 to 15 seconds would be. We are incredibly accessible. It's stunningly beautiful. Home of the Olympics. There's a ton of history here, but it's also modern, and it's super high-end and just an absolute world-class experience here. You know, there's a lot. It's kind of like that go North campaign. It's like, how do you say it all? We'll say go north. And that's kind of our way of saying it. But, you know, it certainly comes down to like access, views, experience, history, the lodges and just the service and the way you feel when you come up to Snowbasin.

[00:46:52] Tom Kelly: Michael Rucker, thanks for joining us on Last Chair. It's been fun to talk about your creativity and congratulations to you and Snowbasin and all of your team on your accomplishments here. Everybody get up here and ski.

[00:47:03] Michael Rueckert: Hey, thank you so much. And I have to brag about the team tomorrow. Utah Business is naming us the marketing team of the year. Just an absolutely incredible team. So lucky to have them to work with. Thank you for having me on.

[00:47:12] Tom Kelly: Thanks, Michael.