Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
New Hampshire (NH) offers four distinct seasons and ample outdoor activities. However, so does every other state in New England! With every tourism destination gunning for their share of the pre-pandemic visitation pie, it’s never been harder to compete for attention. So, Visit NH needed to find a way to set the Granite State apart in preparation for its top visitation season of the year – summer – and achieve the following goals: 1) Fuel awareness of NH as a premier summer vacation destination – capturing eyeballs that might otherwise turn to neighboring competitors like Maine or Vermont. 2) Increase visitation and in-market spend – encouraging consumers to come, stay, and spend. 3) Drive NH State Meals & Room Tax revenue. 4) Secure return on investment – ensuring we maximize every marketing dollar.
Fortunately, NH has one significant advantage over its neighbors: while it has a relatively small footprint, there’s a vast range of outdoor activities and unique natural beauty to choose from – something we refer to as “Variety within Proximity.” This insight would serve as the lynchpin of our brand strategy. By combining this sentiment of choice with the notion of freedom from the state’s “Live Free or Die” motto, we could authentically challenge people to explore this variety and freedom of choice, from sea to sky. And all within a day’s road trip.
Beneath our “Live Free” brand platform, we built an integrated campaign that ran from Mar. 21-Aug. 31, 2023, and hit nearly every consumer touchpoint, encouraging prospective visitors – particularly outdoor enthusiasts – from MA, RI, CT, ME, NH, NY, NJ, PA, Montreal, and Quebec City, to “Discover Your New.” Campaign creative elevated the state’s array of options, highlighting soft and adventurous activities within our unique environments (wide open spaces, beautiful mountains, pristine lakes, and vibrant seacoast) and effectively positioned the Granite State as a top destination for summer activities in New England.
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)
Our campaign set records for the season. According to SMARI and AdTheorent’s Destination Sales Lift study, “Discover Your New” achieved these results: 1) Fuel awareness: NH had a 6.8% increase in awareness, costing $.28 per Aware Household ($.51 is the industry average). 2) Increase visitation and in-market spend: The state welcomed 4.5M visitors, up 3.3% YoY; visitors spent $2.3B, up 3.3% YoY; and the campaign generated $22MM+ in observed in-market sales. 3) NH State Meals & Room Tax: Revenue grew 2.38% YoY. 4) Drive ROI: NH generated $228 for each $1 invested in media.
To drive this impact, we surrounded audiences with wanderlust-inspiring advertising that kept NH top of mind. Through OOH, TV, display, streaming audio, social, email, influencers, and more, we met visitors on the road, online, at home, and everywhere in between.
To reinforce “Variety within Proximity” we created road trip-inspired content. On streaming audio, we sponsored road trip-themed stations and made audio spots with the sounds of a NH summer getaway. On social, we made an Instagram poll about NH hidden gems, then turned those inputs into an interactive map on visitnh.gov where users could curate itineraries to those destinations. We also partnered with several influencers, asking them to design their own itineraries using the map, then capture and share their travel experiences with followers.
We created high-impact OOH, from billboards blanketing major highways to takeovers across Philly to immersive 3-D video billboards highlighting NH outdoor experiences. TV spots hit highly populated DMAs in our target markets. And finally, in collaboration with AdTheorent, CTV and display efforts drove a significant lift in incremental spend among credit/debit card holders (Visa, Mastercard, Discover): Retail (66.4%), Restaurants/Bars (16.3%), and Hotels/Motels (9.6%).
All in, the campaign delivered 438.6M impressions, 26M video views, 6.4M social engagements, and 1M link clicks.
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?
The success of Visit New Hampshire’s “Discover Your New” summer campaign was measured against the previous year’s performances across similar media channels, state visitation, and visitor spending (revenue).
Even with our media budget slightly decreasing year over year, “Discover Your New” successfully earned 438.6M impressions and drove 4.5 million visitors to the state.
According to our research firm partner, SMARI, the campaign achieved $560 million in influenced visitor spending, which equates to a return on investment of $228 for each $1 invested in advertising media, and $35 million in tax revenue, which equates to a return on investment of $14.50 per $1 spent.
Entry Title
"Discover Your New" Brand Campaign - Summer 2023
Division
Advertising - Brand Campaign