
A ski resort used a 1-star review in its ads, so now I’m inspired - iamben
https://medium.com/words-for-life/a-ski-resort-used-a-1-star-review-in-its-brilliant-ads-so-now-im-inspired-945ba7f31fe9
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empath75
I always skim through the worst reviews for places, rather than the best
reviews. Every good review is kind of the same, but bad reviews tell you
useful information. If all the bad reviews are basically people complaining
about minor service complaints, that’s usually a good sign. If they’re all
about bugs or the rooms being dirty, etc, you should definitely have second
thoughts.

~~~
mattmanser
I find this very useful for Amazon reviews too. If all the 1-star reviews are
complaints about delivery or nonsense like that, the product is good. If
they're all calling out a specific condition or a bad design feature, that's
more than likely an actual problem with the product (e.g. frequent dead pixels
on monitors or hiss on wireless headphones or some other annoyance).

~~~
WillReplyfFood
Not true, many complaints on delivery delay can point otwards a totally over-
run company with eternal wait-times or massive scale up problems.

~~~
mattmanser
Anything that has multiple sellers it becomes completely irrelevant,
especially if you have Prime and mainly get Prime deliveries.

It's got nothing to do with the product at all.

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whatusername
There’s the movie poster with a 2 star review:
[https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend-
review-movie-marketing-false-advertising)

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minxomat
I didn't expect much from the abstract, but that's brilliant

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CapitalistCartr
The review says:

"I've heard Snowbird is a tough mountain, but this is ridiculous. It felt like
every trail was a steep chute or littered with tree wells. How is anyone
supposed to ride in that? Not fun!" Greg, Los Angeles, CA

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zaroth
Saw this in the comments...

>> I’m just a copywriter from Illinois who knows greatness when I see it.

> Do you wear a monocle?

 _If anyone ever gives me a monocle I will never stop wearing it._

Luke, your monocle will arrive at the office on Tuesday.

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trukelayser
Received, thank you. The Internet is fun.

~~~
duck
The Internet is awesome... but more importantly, are you still wearing it?

~~~
trukelayser
Yes. My wife has gone from amused to angry to inconsolable. Great monocle, 1
out of 5 stars.

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jeffnappi
I already love Snowbird and spent several days there last year. I saw this ad
posted on their Twitter account and thought it was pure genius. They hit the
nail on the head, because I friggin love the challenging terrain there.
Although my true love in Utah is Brighton Resort :) They probably have the
same sort of rediculous "Oh my God there's 'too much' powder" reviews. For the
record as long as there's not a lot of flat areas there's no such thing as too
much powder ️️️

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ot
Maybe they got the idea from Abstruse Goose
[http://www.abstrusegoose.com/527](http://www.abstrusegoose.com/527)

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gingerlime
I wonder how this can work in other cases though. After all, if their selling
point is very difficult snow trails, and someone basically says that their
trails are too difficult for him, then is it really a 1-star review?

It's cool that they can do this, but very few businesses can rely on this
extreme segmentation...

~~~
betenoire
"this food is too spicy" at a mexican restaurant. "The rides made me want to
throw up" at a wild carnival.

They seem pretty easy to make. Find some feature, make it "intense", make
someone whine about the intensity.

But yeah, it's not really a 1 star review, the guy just doesn't get it, and we
are in on the joke.

~~~
colechristensen
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in
your life."

"If nobody hates you, you’re doing something wrong"

Trying to be all things to all people means you'll likely be exquisitely
mediocre. Excellence very often comes out of limitations, and designing whom
your product is _not_ intended for can be more powerful than the opposite.
Using honest feedback from someone you intended to not serve is a clever
tactic and building something to get reviews like that might improve your
business.

~~~
betenoire
yeah you said it better :)

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vijayr02
Reminds me of how the Grauniad's negative review of the movie Legend was spun:
[https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend-
review-movie-marketing-false-advertising)

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dahart
The most famous example of this kind of ad is VW's "Lemon" and "Think Small"
campaigns from around 1960. Google image search for "lemon ad".

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Small](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Small)

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Mz
Scenery porn + minimal information dense copy that nails their value position
and target market in a nutshell ("wusses -- like this reviewer -- need not
apply") + understated contact info.

It's a good formula to follow. You don't even need a 1 star review to follow
it. Using a 1 star review as part of it has its own perks, like schadenfreude
and irony and thought provoking plot twist. But, it isn't even essential to
the basic brilliance of this piece.

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rurban
As austrian and ex-competitive skier I can recommend Snowbird and it's
associated venues wholeheartedly. It's great, with easy and difficult slopes,
and fantastic management. The only thing which I didn't like was the
restaurant in Russian neo-oligarch St.Anton style at the top. But this was
just the architecture.

So they have it pretty easy to use such a review in their ads. The target
audience knows how to take it

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Doctor_Fegg
A similar advert for the Welsh Tourist Board a few years back:

[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nick_Clifton/publicatio...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nick_Clifton/publication/233316800/figure/fig9/AS:300041102217223@1448546781581/Figure-9-Area-
of-outstandingly-bad-mobile-reception.png)

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EwanG
Nothing like reframing the debate. Sort of like 1 star Amazon reviews where
someone complains about never having to recharge a USB battery pack...

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horsecaptin
OP's company can do better than "Dare to be different" on their website after
being inspired by all this amazing advertising.

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insanejudge
weird to see someone unironically bragging about inventing the humblebrag.

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HillaryBriss
for mobile development, maybe google should just "embrace the negative"
instead of portraying the android ecosystem as a unicorn munching candy grass
in a Bob Ross landscape

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gt_
I agree this is a good ad from a tourist perspective.

The sad part is Snowbird is tracked within an hour after any snowfall. First
tram up on a powder day at snowbird deserves all 5 stars but after that, it's
a legitimate 1 star experience.

EDIT: unless you spent the night in the canyon and an avalanche takes out the
access road :)

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nether
> The sad part is Snowbird is tracked within an hour after any snowfall

Is there any resort where this is not the case?

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wtvanhest
I'm a solid intermediate snow boarder. Snowbird is uniquely steep/aggressive
imo. Most other great mountains like Breck or whistler etc. have a combination
of relaxing and tough. Snowbird just feels tough almost all the way down.

Good snow probably makes snowbird amazing, limited or tracked snow sucks there
more than other places imo.

