Did you hear?…Cloudveil gets ski bums off the hook with new "I'm sorry" ad campaign

Most of us have heard the expression, “No friends on a powder day,” and now Cloudveil has found a way to apologize to friends and family for that thoughtlessness in a new ad campaign that combines print, online and social media with cross-promotion to other online marketers.

The three tongue-in-cheek print ads getting ready for primetime in magazines like Outside and Powder feature flowers, mugs and dog bones from actual online companies, including 1-800-Flowers, Zazzle and Kool Dog Café, that can be ordered to say, “I’m sorry” for missing the business meeting or family lunch to ski, climb or fish.

Cloudveil’s ad agency, TDA Advertising and Design, devised the campaign and arranged the cross-promotion with the online marketers. “Sorry” cards with Cloudveil’s brand name will be included with ordered merchandise.

“(The ad campaign) is an impactful, funny, tongue-in-cheek way to say we’ve all got different priorities and our priority is to be in the outdoors in the backcountry and we all have to make excuses now and then why we do the things we do,” Steve Sullivan, president of Cloudveil, told SNEWS®. “This was a way to do I’m sorry and here’s a gift for those excuses we have to continually make.”

Cheekiness aside — well, not entirely — it was a mandate that Cloudveil’s product be in the ads, but promoted at the bottom using the “you might also like this” selling concept used by most online marketers to push more product.

“It’s a classic kind of way you try to cross-sell more product. We thought that was another tongue-in-cheek way that hinted at go to our website and take a look at this,” Sullivan said.

In conjunction with the print campaign, Cloudveil (www.cloudveil.com) is launching a Facebook application following the same theme. Developed by Friend2Friend, the app will link from Cloudveil’s website, Facebook and Twitter pages, and run from early October through Jan. 1, 2010.

Users will be able to pick from another series of humorous gifts to send to their friends that stick with Cloudveil’s mountain-town theme. Among the gifts that can be bought are Snake River Brewing lager, an actual doghouse to house man’s best friend while on the slopes, and even ibuprofen — all chosen to reflect the brand’s story. SNEWS was told that in the next month, the company will switch to more ski-specific gifts. 

“The cool thing about this campaign is it’s not just a print campaign. It’s a print campaign that leads you to the web that leads you to another product if you want to buy it as a joke, or to a social media app,” Sullivan said. “The idea was to make this campaign all inclusive. It’s the first time we’ve had a campaign that has anything to do with our own website and that had anything to do with social media.”

Sullivan pointed out that retailers will benefit by the national exposure of the brand in print publications and on the web as the viral aspect of the campaign takes hold.

“The idea was this was an ad campaign that drew attention to Cloudveil and that thereby draws attention to product carried by retailers,” Sullivan said. “Our hope is retailers will use the application, send it around and build awareness of Cloudveil and push the app on their own websites. It’ll be out in the public domain so they can access.” 

And, if as successful as expected, the company is considering plans to continue the campaign concept into spring.

–Wendy Geister