Grand Targhee campaign presents summer as it should be
A summer vacation to an iconic national park might be the dream, but the reality? Crowded parking lots, bumper-to-bison traffic, and the kind of stress that makes you question why you even took time off in the first place. When it came time to create Grand Targhee’s summer ’25 campaign, we saw an opportunity to flip the script. What if your summer vacation actually felt like... a vacation? We set out to position Targhee exactly as it is: everything people wish a national park getaway could be—wild, wonderful, and refreshingly uncrowded. A place where you can hike, bike, sip a local brew, and listen to bluegrass. All without needing a vacation from your vacation. Welcome to Mellowstone.
Campaign strategy
Walking a fine line between marketing campaign and place identity, we designed this campaign to complement the broader Grand Targhee brand and position the resort as something distinctively different in the summer months. Because Grand Targhee’s summer guest is seeking a more relaxed vacation vibe than their core winter audience, we positioned the resort’s warm weather offering in a more playful, chilled-out tone and aesthetic that perfectly aligned with the promise inherent to our delightfully irreverent Mellowstone name.
Design and visual direction
We leaned into a brighter colour palette to support the summer season, while remaining consistent with the broader Targhee brand. Our asset capture focused on bringing a strongly differentiated visual identity to typical summer resort imagery by leaning into an “accidentally Wes Anderson” look and feel. This allowed us to both distinguish ourselves visually, while creating a suite of striking photography with room for clean text overlay. All while continuing to develop a sense of playful irreverence and laid-back vibes.
Advertising rollout
The campaign rolled out across digital advertising and was distributed through Meta, paid search, and programmatic advertising through our friends at Travel Desk.
The ads themselves were a full funnel approach aimed at connecting Mellowstone to Grand Targhee, highlighting the variety of activities that exist at the resort, driving product conversions, and further developing the broader Targhee brand.
In resort
From the outset of our creative development, we envisioned Mellowstone as a sort of alternate universe, where guests could truly feel as if they’d escaped the chaos and stress of everyday life. To accomplish this, we developed a suite of on-resort activations – including custom artwork, in-room sticker packs, and bespoke postcards that guests could send to loved ones by dropping them into a Mellowstone-branded mailbox – that further solidified the sense that they’d arrived someplace special.
