Lost Valley Ranch: Protecting a 140-Year Legacy Through Strategic Storytelling
Campaign Development | Communications Strategy | Brand Identity + Brand Messaging | Web Design | Copywriting
THE CLIENT
Founded in 1885, Lost Valley Ranch is a historic, family-owned guest ranch nestled in the Colorado Rockies.
For generations, families have returned year after year for a uniquely unplugged Western experience — horseback riding at sunrise, fly fishing in Goose Creek, trap shooting, line dancing, and long dinners that turn into storytelling sessions.
But Lost Valley Ranch is more than a destination.
It’s a family tradition. A rite of passage. A place where grandparents bring grandchildren to recreate the same memories they once made themselves.
With deep brand loyalty and a fiercely emotional customer base, the Ranch occupies a rare category: Not just hospitality — but heritage.
And when it came time to invest in a 5–8 year renovation initiative designed to preserve the property for the next 50+ years, the stakes weren’t just operational — they were emotional.
THE CHALLENGE
Lost Valley Ranch needed to undergo substantial infrastructure and facility improvements to protect its long-term legacy. The work would span multiple years and phases and because construction would be visible — guests would notice. The Ranch was up against questions like:
How do you renovate without feeling like you’re changing?
How do you improve facilities without signaling that something needed improvements?
How do you communicate disruption to guests who feel like the Ranch belongs to them?
Silence wasn’t an option —but neither was alarmism. They didn’t want (or need!) a spin — they needed a strategy that carefully protected the trust they spent over a century building.
THE STRATEGY
Before designing a single sign or drafting a single email, we anchored the work in one central promise:
We’re still the same. And we’re still here.
From that foundation, we built a fully branded communications campaign designed to:
Preserve brand loyalty during visible change
Maintain emotional connection across generations
Proactively address guest concerns without over-amplifying disruption
Equip leadership and staff with aligned, confidence-building language
This wasn’t a one-time announcement, but a narrative infrastructure for the next decade.
The Campaign: Still
We developed a single-word campaign that could flex across signage, emails, leadership scripts, web, and on-site touchpoints: STILL
Still here. Still the same. Still yours.
WHAT WE BUILT
1. Campaign Identity
We created a complementary visual identity system designed to feel native to Lost Valley Ranch’s heritage brand — not disruptive to it.
This included:
Campaign naming and positioning
Typography and color pairings aligned with the Ranch aesthetic
Flexible lockups for signage, print, and web
A cohesive visual language that could scale across phases
This wasn’t a rebrand. It was a strategic overlay.
2. Key Messaging & Leadership Alignment
We developed a detailed Key Messaging + Talking Points document to ensure every voice — from ownership to front desk staff — communicated renovations consistently.
This included:
Core narrative framing
Guest reassurance language
FAQ positioning
Leadership scripting guidance
When stewarding a 140-year-old legacy, internal alignment is as important as external messaging.
3. Landing Page Hub
We outlined and designed a dedicated renovation landing page to serve as the narrative home base.
The goal:
Centralize updates
Share progress milestones
Feature guest stories
Provide transparent FAQs
Offer opt-in updates
Rather than scattering communication across isolated emails, we created a hub guests could return to — reinforcing stability and control.
4. Multi-Touch Communication Plan
We mapped proactive communication across:
Booking flows
Pre-arrival emails
On-site signage
Sunday night welcome announcements
Social storytelling
Direct guest updates
The objective wasn’t to over-communicate, but to eliminate surprises and panic. We wanted to proactively get rid of any perception gaps and provide a steady reassurance to guests.
THE OUTCOME
While the full campaign was ultimately paused due to internal timeline shifts, the strategic foundation delivered:
A scalable narrative architecture for multi-year renovations
Emotional brand protection during operational change
Internal clarity and leadership alignment
A cohesive communications framework ready to deploy
Most importantly, it proved something critical: You don’t protect legacy with silence. You protect it with thoughtful storytelling.
