Hell in a Handbasket
At the center of the conflict lies the age-old debate over once-taboo ideas and language being assimilated into everyday use. It is the nature of media to propagate the new and the shocking, and the nature of the previous, more conservative generations to make a fuss over it. Eventually the resistance weakens, until even your grandma calls you a little bitch without batting an eye.
Skiing is no different. Except in a sport many feel is rapidly losing ground to its action-sports counterparts, getting in tune with the youth market could be the difference between getting picked up or passed over. In that case, the same, tired photo of the smiling powder turn--while it certainly is politically correct--isn't going to turn the heads of the PlayStation generation.
"There is a place for these marketing tactics, as long as they're in the right publications," says Steve Winter, founder of Matchstick Productions, and one of the people credited with reviving skiing's image in the '90s. "Marketing in the ski industry has come a long way in the past few years. I hope it continues in this vein."