I'm pretty sure that someone at the local news TV station in Utah was getting free gear from our shop in exchange for airtime. My proof is simple. Whenever nothing newsworthy was happening in Utah, which was frequent, the local TV crew would arrive at my shop and ask us what they could shoot. We'd help them do stories on how much cheaper it is to buy lift tickets at our store (the last one on the way up the canyon!) or how we had a massive rental fleet (and would deduct the price of a high end rental if you ended up buying the skis from us). When I'd catch one of our segments on TV, it would look more like a Paul Harvey commercial than a news report. On one hand I have to applaud them for helping support local businesses. On the other hand I find their ethics deplorable, but my ski shop bosses PR savvy impressive. You don't get those kinds of results hiring a PR agency, but handing out some free skis gets the job done in no time.
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