Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
In 2023, we introduced South Dakota’s destination stewardship program to the world. Named after South Dakota’s single area code, a local point of pride, Forever 605 was created to address the importance of state stewardship for both visitors and residents alike. This year, we accomplished industry buy-in through webinars, email marketing, swag giveaways, and equipping destinations with informational materials – thereby inspiring the tourism industry to rally behind the campaign.
While most wouldn’t deny the importance of caring for one’s state, there’s still the big question of “how do I even do it?”. After laying the foundation for Forever 605 and positioning it as a “club” rooted in state pride, it was time to dive deeper into specific issues, provide tangible ways for people to practice state stewardship, continue growing involvement, and further drive the importance of respectful travel. For peak season, critical issues identified included visiting lesser-known destinations, not feeding the wildlife, not littering in the wilderness or outdoor spaces, and practicing proper ATV etiquette by riding on the trail.
To grow involvement in this “club”, we knew it was critical not to shame bad behavior or provide a boring, cliche list of do’s and don’ts. So, we took a creative route with our video that was much more memorable and unexpected. We used playful animated illustrations to convey the comically exaggerated, unintended snowball effects of not practicing respectful travel etiquette – all with a ludicrous payoff. We took a similar approach with other tactics such as OOH, pairing illustrations with humorous headlines to make our informative messages feel more human and ultimately more memorable.
Our media plan for the campaign included video, digital display, print via local publications, OOH, and social. We also sent industry partners a Forever 605 toolkit filled with assets to aid in their participation and dissemination of the campaign efforts.
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)
By championing Forever 605 at a grassroots level and focusing on resident pride in its early stages, we attained local buy-in which will help with long-term success. Forever 605 was founded on research and resident sentiments, granting us quick adoption with locals who are proud to rep Forever 605 gear and spread the message at their businesses and to their peers.
Forever 605 excelled at inspiring visits to lesser-known destinations and relieving destination overcrowding. A recent detailed analysis of visitor spending throughout South Dakota counties shows visitor spending is 21% higher than pre-pandemic levels (2019) and 4.9% higher than 2022’s numbers. This growth isn’t limited to one region but reflects dispersion across the entire state.
Of our issue-based videos, the creative focused on not littering was a crowd favorite. This video drove the most site conversions on display, attained the highest VCR on video (89%), and generated 28% of hotel bookings in July. Upon rotating all of our issue-based videos to the campaign in July, we witnessed a 47% increase MoM in site activity.
Industry reception was enthusiastic, with 75 industry partners registering for a dedicated webinar. Per the enthusiasm, we created a multi-part email series promoting campaign initiatives and shared informative content to be disseminated to visitors. This email series had an average open rate of 33% and a click-to-open rate of 6%. This engagement drove 47% of page views to the campaign landing page on SDVisit.com. The tourism industry's average open rate was around 20% with an average click-to-open rate of about 1.4%. 287 industry partner toolkits have also been distributed since launch.
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?
Not only has Forever 605 sparked local pride and accrued 3,000+ pledge signatures, but it inspired over 20,000 hotel bookings, 1,843 flight searches, and contributed nearly $5MM in hotel revenue. The economic impact that South Dakota’s Forever 605 campaign had was an unprecedented, astronomical result when the goal was primarily to drive awareness of dispersion, care, and respect for the state. So far this year, Forever 605 has attributed a $99:1 Return on Ad Spend – by far the most impactful campaign for its budget.
Division
Advertising - Corporate Social Responsibility