Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
St. Pete/Clearwater is known for sunshine, beautiful beaches and outdoor adventures. However, over the years, the destination’s visual arts offerings have grown significantly, and there are now several world-class venues that stand out for their uniqueness. From the largest collection of Salvador Dalí artwork outside Europe, to the only museum in the world dedicated solely to the American Arts and Crafts movement, to 600+ amazing murals and so much more, St. Pete/Clearwater rightfully deserves to be a brand known for arts and culture as well as beaches.
Brand development, however, takes time and typically a substantial investment. Traditional promotion of the destination’s visual arts through paid advertising or content distributed in owned channels doesn’t always build brand equity, awareness or association. It can be difficult to shift perceptions in the minds of audiences from a somewhat singular deep-rooted brand proposition to include additional brand attributes. But that is precisely what needed to happen.
Our solution was to leverage an existing brand to help transfer affinity and awareness to St. Pete/Clearwater. Our choice was Atlas Obscura, a brand whose mission is to inspire wonder and curiosity about the incredible world we share by providing the definitive guide to hidden wonders.
Atlas Obscura offers tremendous reach. From SEM Rush analytics, AtlasObscura.com has a Site Authority score of 74, over 4.1M performing keywords – 18,000 of which are for museums alone – 17M backlinks, and a baked-in audience of people looking for unique arts and culture attractions (indexing well above average at 3x the affinity for visual arts*). Atlas Obscura’s audience is interested in the arts (78%) and travels 87% of the time to enjoy arts and culture experiences (source: Quantcast audience research). It was a perfect match, and an opportunity to transfer the Atlas Obscura audience’s passion for cultural travel and unique offerings to St. Pete/Clearwater.
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)
To achieve our goals, it was clear that the campaign had to include a wide range of tactics, since display banners alone could not provide the context, storytelling, or rich media needed to convey all that the destination offers. As a result, the campaign was created with a mix of great content that included:
• The addition of three new permanent entries into the Atlas
• A custom curated new list of the “Wonders of St. Pete/Clearwater’s Arts Scene”
• Social promotion through the Atlas’s Facebook channel
• Development of a custom rich media carousel unit on AtlasObscura.com
• Host-read ads for Atlas’s podcasts (read by AO co-founder Dylan Thomas)
And for the digital clicks from banners and other ad units to VSPC’s site, the program is performing very well in terms of both efficiency and engagement:
• Site traffic is engaged, performing within the top 20th percentile compared to all other display advertising with respect to average session duration and a bounce rate that’s 9% lower than the primary programmatic display campaigns
• Efficiency is excellent, with costs of acquisition for clicks to the site 36% lower and a click-through rate increase of 22 percent versus comparable programmatic ad units promoting the arts within the destination
• ROI over time will continue to grow, since many of the campaign elements such as the three new permanent entries to the Atlas and custom curated lists are enduring assets within the Atlas that provide benefit well into the future
Budget: Please include total budget vs. total actual cost. How much revenue has the piece or campaign generated and how does this compare to your goal? What was the return on investment?
The total campaign’s budget and actual costs were $50,000. The campaign runs through March, 2022. Already the campaign has delivered site traffic that points to 7:1 ROI in terms of impressions plus site traffic. However, it’s really the permanent additions to the Atlas that will provide the strongest ROI, with the addition of three new profiles as well as the addition of the “Wonders of St. Pete/Clearwater’s Arts Scene.” These elements of the campaign will continue to grow ROI over time, with impressions, site engagements, and the economic impact of visits to the destination that will accrue value well into the future.
Entry Title
Atlas Obscura Brand Alliance
Division
Digital Marketing - Integrated Market Campaign for Consumers (B2C)