As this year’s ski & snowboard season ramps up, companies are doing everything they can to push product. Vermont-based Burton Snowboards has re-invented their “open minds, open mountains” campaign with a hefty challenge to “sabotage stupidity” by poaching at the four resorts in the US that still ban snowboarding. In the video on their microsite, there’s a lengthy intro by Jake Burton where he mentions Facism and Draconian bans, and proceeds to talk about the Declaration of Independence, freedom, and poaching as a form of protest. It’s a bit heavyhanded, but I wouldn’t expect any less from Burton. To top it off, there’s a $5000 purse per resort for the best user-generated poaching video posted to the site. That’s one way to invite participation. And to make the pot even sweeter (and voice support for the campaign), companies are pitching in, like Seattle snowboarding retailer Evo Gear who added an additional $5000 to the purse.

It’s interesting to see a company the size of Burton, the world’s leading snowboard manufacturer, pushing something along the lines of poaching. I’d have to question the legal implications of a possibly illegal endeavor on a private resort. They do have a “Poaching 10 commandments” page on the site, the first of which is don’t break the law, but it’s still something unexpect from Burton - which may be a good thing. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out, and to see if they actually get some cool content out of it.
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