Vail Resorts Video Contest

jjensen

New member
Hi there - I am an avid skier living in Summit County, CO. Vail Resorts is running a contest for people to blog and take video each week during the ski season next year (as a volunteer). In order to enter, you had to submit a short video on why you should be selected, and they posted the videos for online voting. Please help me by voting for my video "I'll Be Skiing You at Breckenridge", it only takes 2 seconds. Here is the link and I look forward to seeing you either the remainder of this ski season or next ski season! (Yes, we're still skiing here in Colorado, went to A-Basin yesterday, where they had 11+ inches of fresh powder!)

http://buzz.snow.com/#/viewContestInfo/ ... 0/video/42

Jenise Jensen
 
I'd like to publicly apologize to jjensen. Regulars around here may be used to the way that some organizations use our forums as a means to spam our readers, although many may not notice because we're usually fairly quick to delete the offending posts. In my haste, I mistook jjensen's post above as one of those posts, whipped off a rather hasty and direct post in response and locked this topic. I have since communicated with jjensen backchannel and am confident that I was wrong. At her request I've deleted my original response, and I've further unlocked the topic. jjensen, I hope that you'll remain active in our community.

Sincerely,
Marc
 
The message above looked pretty similar to the other ones and I can't blame Admin for using the Smart Bomb like that. I assume that VR provides a template for contestants to use?
 
Vail's contest website is graphically very attractive and the video promoting the contest is pretty funny, in my opinion. With that said, to answer your question, they didn't really provide detailed info (certainly not templates or examples), or a lot of direction on what they are looking for in the way of submissions, other than be creative and show your passion for skiing. (Unless I missed something, which is always a possibility) The contest info was and is somewhat vague on some details, at least to me. From what I can gather, I think it is their first time doing this, so they are probably not sure what they want, and are leaving their options open. Or perhaps they are leaving it open to allow for a lot of creativity of submissions. If there is similarity, I guess it just means that none of us that are interested in this are as original or creative as we think we are :)
 
I also wanted to thank Marc for his post. I believe what Marc is saying is: he screwed up, he's sorry, and he hopes you'll vote for my video anyway :) And, in our own version of a peace accord, we've decided we should ski together sometime next season. Date, time and location still TBD...........so stay tuned!
 
jjensen":ve6obwhb said:
to answer your question, they didn't really provide detailed info (certainly not templates or examples), or a lot of direction on what they are looking for in the way of submissions
I wasn't referring to templates for the video submissions, but for the "vote for me" posts we've seen. If I'm not mistaken, yours was almost identical to the earlier ones, which is probably why Admin tagged it as spam.
 
With all due respect to those submitting, not sure I could quite go for such a contest. I'd rather be able to feel I could call BS on a snow report or etc... than feel that I need to either hide shortcomings of the day/resort/etc... or flat out lie due to being given free stuff from the marketing team at the resort. That said, it seems like a very good and cheap way to get pictures, videos and etc... promoting your brand all season long if you are VR (way cheaper than hiring more marketing folks to do it). I'll be curious to see though if it's all gushing, rah-rah material or if anyone bothers to call out if a chair is not open when it should be (cough, cough, copper), or the reported foot is actually only 4" (cough, cough, breck) or etc...

So I guess I'm kind of conflicted on some of the aspects of this contest. Good luck though JJensen; it definitely takes a lot more time and effort than most people think to put together a video, even a short one.
 
I don't think anything external should prevent someone who has submitted a video in a contest from filing "tell it like it is" reports on ski forums like FTO. If the individual chooses to "suck up" in all his/her online activity in the interest of winning a contest that is his/her problem.
 
You know, as I read through some of these posts, its quite possible you all may have thought through some of this more than I have! To answer a couple of your questions, from the perspective of someone who entered, but does not have all the answers:

1 - They have not given us anything, no templates or info on how to get votes, it is one way communication - you simply submitted your video online. Then you are on your own at this time, it is completely up to the individuals who entered what they do. I have only seen the one other on this site, which Marc told me about, so I don't know if they are similar or not, or what others are doing. Like I said, if they are, then I guess it means we are not as creative as we think we are :)

2 - Regarding the question on what I guess some of you might be asking could be censorship in some form....again, there has been no discussion of that. The only info I have is what is on their website and you can read it too. This issue did not really occur to me. Maybe that is because I live here, and I love skiing and the community I live in, and my perspective was this was about sharing some of the cool things that happen in our community and great opportunities on the mountain. I think I am lucky to live in a ski community. Now with that said, you are right, not every day is a great day......I guess its a question of how you look at things, a glass half-full or half-empty perspective.

3 - I don't think they are looking for us to be reporters.....they do want us to blog, but blogging is different than reporting. I don't think there is anything to hide or that they want us to do that.....and I agree, it comes down to the ethics of the people involved. If I didn't like and respect the mountain (Breckenridge), then I would not have entered this contest, because I want people to respect me too, and it would never be worth a free pass to do something for someone you don't respect. The staff that I have met at the mountain are good people, and I think as a business, they are looking for good people too!

So, I guess this will be interesting to see how it all works out. I do appreciate the person who recognized the time commitment involved......that would be my biggest question on the whole project. I hope it works out for me to be involved in some way, then I can let you all know! Thanks!!!
 
So, ski season is off and running in Colorado and I thought I would post an update on here about the "Snow Squad". You will see from my earlier post(s) that I entered the contest and some of you had questions. I was selected and we are in the process of gearing up for the season. I think it will be a lot of fun to share what I love about skiing and Breckenridge. If you want to know more about the folks that got selected, you can follow this link: http://buzz.to/f3MKm and you will see we are a pretty diverse bunch with different interests and abilities.

So that's it for now, I will check back in from time to time. If you happen to be in Breck next week for the opening......I can tell you that they are doing free french toast for the first 1,000 people on Friday morning and also holding a contest to win both riding the first chair on opening day and also a chance to be the first guest in history to ride the new alpine coaster at Breck. You can find that info here: http://buzz.to/Gr57R I can't enter, so I hope one of you wins!

Best wishes for a great ski season, and bring on the snow!!!!
 
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