Vail Resorts Responds to the Summit Daily Firing Controversy

Thank you Jason, I appreciate the fact that you would consider that there other two other factual sides to this story. Here is ours:

We in no way threatened or asked for Bob Berwyn to be dismissed. We simply expressed disappointment when very serious allegations about us were made and we had not been contacted beforehand for comment. Since Rob and all of us have worked with Bob many times and thought we had a relationship whereby we could call one another when there was an issue, we thought there was nothing wrong to call him and Jim Morgan to express our disappointment. Bob knows full well that happens every day at every newspaper across the country. We expect the media to hold us accountable, and they do, but that also means that anyone should be able to hold the media accountable, especially when balance and fairness are at issue. We work with journalists every day across Colorado, the country and the globe. There have been many stories written or broadcasted about us that we may not have liked or agreed with, but never have we threatened someone’s position because of our disappointment.

Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz blogged about what happened, as did the publisher of the Summit Daily News in the paper and I would encourage everyone to read both. Here is Rob Katz’s blog: http://news.vailresorts.com/articledisplay.cfm?articleid=1070

Sincerely, Kelly Ladyga

For the publisher’s response to these issues, please see Summit Daily Publisher Jim Morgan’s column at http://bit.ly/8A9hHk

From my perspective as a long-time ski-country editor, please believe that we’ve had plenty of occasions when resorts (and other advertisers) have been displeased with a story, and no one (including in this case) has ever been canned because of it. I understand it’s inconvenient to Bob’s narrative to tell the whole, true story, but consider the source, folks: a disgruntled former employee …

Thanks both for the comments.

Alex: Morgan doesn’t give us much to go on in his column, apart from his rejection of Berwyn’s claims regarding VR influence. Also, I haven’t seen evidence to suggest that Berwyn is disgruntled. What am I missing?

Jason,

Kelly knows, as does Alex, that Vail did pull the ads. That’s why you see Jim address it head on in his column. It’s common knowledge, and my sources inside both the Summit and Vail Daily confirm that Katz’ account of these events are actually wrong. The resort paid a cancellation fee to have the ads pulled. This is very different than “having them put on hold”

Further, Rob contends this was done after a tweet from me, which is also misleading. The timing of my tweet doesn’t match with the ad pulling. As if 200 followers suddenly were broadcast out similar to the bloomberg video (which you can still find on their site). There’s a measure of proportional response that I don’t think the PR team nor Rob got.

Vail Resorts I believe made this situation worse by raising the ire of a large group of people who really like Bob and his work. That’s my issue as a private citizen who poked—IN FUN— the PR folks and Rob for pushing reports of snowfall that was not happening at the ski resort, as guests see right through it. In my mind, it went beyond the promotion of the snow, no matter where it falls as a good thing, but to creating expectations that, for example, the ski area HQ that “closed due to the storm” is at the base of the lifts (where it should be).

But from the perspective of an elected official in my community, I’m not finding any glee in all the back-slapping I’m getting from my fellow locals in the post office, but rather saddened because the community and the resort must work together as the guests don’t draw a line between my town and their ski area. And we have so many MORE important topics to debate than this.

And as someone in the ad business (who submits ads for several of CMNM papers on behalf of clients), and in marketing, I’m curious what the culture in Broomfield has become so nervous of image that even the silly blog rumor sites covering other stories warrant defensive responses each and every time.

One can find the link on my Twitter account to the Dartmouth College study that reinforces the suspicion that ski areas habitually pad reports. Rob calls it a “serious accusation”, but it’s neither serious nor is it an accusation. Snow marketing is a business.

I have considered responding to Rob personally about his decision to call me out on a silly press release on Vail’s website. But the response from the community seems enough to hopefully cause some changes in Broomfield. As one stranger said to me yesterday “Seems like he has enough rope to hang himself”. I think Vail’s an important partner, Rob’s a smart leader, and the local ski area is run by intelligent, capable and dedicated staff. But right now, the distance between their HQ and Summit County is metaphorically a lot greater than 75 miles.

If you’re interested, Jason, the tweet that was referred to in Bob’s column (although I could not find Rob’s tweet of the photo of snow on his back deck), is here:

http://twitter.com/VailResortsNEWS/status/5239741205

Note that this is a corporate Twitter account, not personal. Thought this might bring it all full-circle for you.

Regards, dave

I guess Bob would know best if he’s disgruntled or not. He certainly appears to be, and his actions suggest so.

Dave: Your comments and openness are much appreciated.

I don’t think anyone—Vail Resorts/Kelly Ladyga/Rob Katz included—disputes that VR pulled their ads. And for my part, I don’t see a big problem with them having done so—it common practice for advertisers to take such action in response to reporting they dislike.

But you dispute Katz’s reasoning for pulling the ads which is that the content of a private communication made its way into the Twitter stream of a public official—you.

Can you point us to and/or clarify for us what the timeframe actually was? On 11/21 you Tweeted this:

“The @vailresortsnews blowback (calls SDN publisher!?) over cheeky criticism (& tweets) 4 snow mktg http://bit.ly/1FftFx shows thin skin”

which seems like it could be the offending Tweet referred to by Katz. Are you saying that VR pulled their ads prior to that? Or was the offending Tweet something that came later?

Alex: Thanks for the response. I was hoping you’d give some specific examples of actions suggesting that Berwyn is disgruntled.

I haven’t seen anything to lead me to that conclusion, but my grasp of the facts is limited to what I can ascertain from my home in Boulder—at least until I can get up there myself.

I believe the thing to keep in mind is that no one in the ski industry or public wants to even hear a peep from Broomfield and the money-managers who run the lodging. They are not the ski industry or the area.

Every time an out-of-industry entity gains power, they want to be the rock star, have their name on the releases, and generally pimp themselves as the soul of the resorts.

What the skiers, the industry professionals, and the manufacturers want to hear from are the people who worked their way up through the actual mountains and have the mountain cred to speak on the issues. (Unfortunately, most of these VRI veterans have been fired or downsized in the last 3-4 years as the money-managers cleaned house to make quarterly returns.)

If VRI were my resort group, my rule would be: No news, no phone calls, no marketing programs ever originate from Broomfield. Ever. Let the mountains keep their authenticity. Let the money people deal with stockholders. Don’t imagine that one area of expertise gives you any respect in another.