Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
The overarching goals of Visit Carmel's FY23-24 brand refresh and integrated brand campaign — titled "A Storybook Kind of Place" — was to (1) establish a brand position that sets Carmel-by-the-Sea apart from its competition and (2) create a brand message that invites visitors to transport themselves to another world in this charming, fairytale village-by-the-sea.
The new brand creative was inspired by our FY23-24 primary visitor research where we confirmed visitors LOVE to (1) explore Carmel's charming village with its hidden passageways and enjoy the amazing food, wine, art, and shopping. (2) Visitors feel a sense of calm in the natural beauty and find joy discovering all the walkable things to do.
From a strategy and media standpoint, the primary goals were to (1) increase website traffic, especially the hotel specials landing page to drive direct hotel bookings, (2) increase hotel website referrals and direct booking ROI, (3) grow website traffic from top drive and fly markets, (4) increase YOY advertising and media performance across TV, CTV, and Digital, and (5) increase YOY City of Carmel Hotel Tax Collection TOT.
Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)
Visit Carmel's FY23-24 brand campaign and multi-media mix generated record-breaking results! Here's the list of primary results comparing FY22-23 vs. FY23-24 (i.e. July-June fiscal years). See our "Visit Carmel Brand Campaign Overview & Results" PDF for details.
WEBSITE METRICS:
+17% YOY increase in Overall Website Traffic — Record breaking with a total of 1,072,719 site visitors (first time over 1 million)!
+561.9% YOY increase in Hotel Specials Landing Page — Record breaking landing page growth!
+18.5% YOY increase in Hotel Website Referrals — Record breaking website referrals to our hotel partners at 249,520 direct clicks!
+10% YOY increase in estimated Hotel Referral Bookings at $6,376,821 ROI (See calculations under the ROI section below) - Record breaking ROI!
Website traffic growth from top drive and fly markets - Record breaking increase in geo growth!
- San Jose +83.65%
- Los Angeles +51.85%
- San Francisco +16.51%
- Sacramento +34.22%
- Dallas +67.60%
- San Diego +35.23%
- Phoenix +59.73%
- Seattle +62.86%
- New York +47.34%
- Denver +106.76%
TV MEDIA METRICS:
+27.58% YOY increase in FY23-24 broadcast TV impressions at over 28 million
+5.5 million Connected TV commercials 100% viewed nationwide and generated almost 16,000 clicks with 2x webpages (This was a new buy)
DIGITAL MEDIA METRICS:
+9.25 YOY increase in Impressions with a total of 73,845,356 — Record breaking digital media Impressions!
+18.49% YOY increase in Clicks with a total of 791,883 — Record breaking digital media Clicks!
+69.34% YOY increase in paid social media Engagements with a total of 5,975,210 — Record breaking social media Engagements!
Meta and Google CTAs are well above industry standard:
- Meta Avg. CTA = 1.29 (Meta Industry standard 0.90% CTA)
- Google Avg. CTA = 0.81 (Google Industry standard 0.10% CTA)
Return on Investment: How much revenue has the piece or campaign generated and how does this compare to your goal? What was the return on investment?
Visit Carmel's FY23-24 brand campaign has helped generate record-breaking Return on Investment based on these two most accurate sources:
1.) FY23-24 Hotel Website Referral Bookings estimated at a record breaking $6,376,821 ROI compared to the last seven years of data!
NOTE: The estimated ROI takes the total "Hotel Website Referrals" and applies this formula: 249,520 Total Referrals x 3.2% Conversion = 7,985 Estimated Hotel Bookings x $798.60 Average Stay = $6,376,821 ROI
2.) FY23-24 City of Carmel Hotel Tax Collection reported a record breaking +11.99% YOY increase in TOT for a total of $8,347,682! This exceeds the last five years including record breaking 2021-22 that benefitted from the pent-up demand due to the pandemic.
Entry Title
Visit Carmel "A Storybook Kind of Place" - Brand Campaign
Division
Advertising - Brand Campaign