It was an image problem.

Over the past few decades Sun Valley had become an afterthought to a generation of skiers—the generation who by the way were the ones skiing right now. Those familiar with the place considered it stuffy, even elitist.

The initial phase of the overhaul and re-branding of the town started with these short films. We spent two weeks in Idaho shooting 8 short films about the place and its people. Our main thinking was: no ski porn. 

We licensed a cool-at-the-time indie track, hit the editing bay, and knocked out a :30 cutdown to play in cinemas in cities with direct flights to Sun Valley.

We still craved more eyeballs.

We really believed in the films, and had so much heart for the place itself, but there was virtually zero media budget. So we aimed for some earned media. We did our best to fit the mountains of Sun Valley into a limited run of boxes, which we sent to targeted writers and bloggers, hoping for increased exposure. Each box was full of original, handmade mountainy stuff, including a book, backcountry matches, and a steelhead fly. We tucked the films into a piece of wood on a flash drive. 

This outreach led directly to a lengthy campaign feature in The New York Times, as well as choice coverage in cool-at-the-time sites like Notcot.