Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?Visit Irving received CARES Act funds to launch an advertising campaign that publicized the reopening of Irving’s hospitality venues and the steps taken to ensure public safety during the pandemic. While this funding had specific requirements, there was broad leeway in how we approached it. There were two primary audiences we needed to reach with our safety-specific messaging, and these two audiences required slightly different approaches. For the first audience, meeting planners, we needed to convey specific steps taken to ensure the safety measures at Irving’s meeting venues, including the Irving Convention Center and Irving’s full-service hotels. Meeting planners were also concerned with the additional costs and risks of booking meetings during an ongoing public health emergency. In addition to mitigating potential concerns by conveying Irving’s safety protocols to make meetings and conventions safe, we also needed to find ways to drive sales leads for future meetings and conventions and keep our long-term group meetings pipeline full. We also needed to reach the individual travelers to increase occupancy in the short term. Since Irving has not traditionally been a leisure destination, we needed to retool our marketing approach. With air travel out of the question, we settled on reaching the drive market. We promoted Irving as a safe place to escape the confines of the home and enjoy resort-style amenities available at many of Irving’s properties. And finally, we wanted to keep Irving top of mind to ensure that as travel resumed, Irving would be well-positioned to welcome those travelers. Our approach to these challenges resulted in the Visit Irving Safely campaign, which included two fully integrated campaigns, the Staycations Campaign and Safe-Meetings Campaign, and a series of advertisements that focused on both visitor safety and mitigating the final impacts of booking future meetings in Irving.

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)All three major components of the comprehensive Visit Irving Safely campaign performed well. The Staycations campaign was immediately successful and generated nearly 25 million impressions and over 316,000 website sessions. The advertising conversion rate for the staycations campaign was over 50%, and the cost per conversion was only 85 cents. Most importantly, the campaign increased Irving hotel occupancy by generating over 151,000 hotel booking referrals, which represented $25.6 million in potential economic value for Irving hotels. The Safe-Meetings campaign included a series of ads on LinkedIn, Facebook and paid search. The campaign also utilized click-to-call ads in its paid search strategy, which produced 291 group sales inquiries. All combined, the Safe-Meetings campaign has generated over six million impressions, 38,408 website sessions and 315 group sales leads. The ad series ran in both digital and print channels and focused on four messages. The “Safe Escape” and “Playing It Safe” ads were geared to individual travelers looking for a fun, relaxing, and safe getaway. The “Unrisky Business” and “Double the Safe Space” advertisements promoted the safety protocols implemented at Irving’s meeting venues and hotel properties. They also addressed the financial concerns of meeting planners with an attrition-free offer at Irving’s hotels and the opportunity to accommodate the extra square footage needed to safely social distance meetings at the Irving Convention Center without incurring additional costs. To date, the ad series generated a combined 6.5 million impressions and 56,894 website sessions on Irvingtexas.com.

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 advertising spend for the advertising campaign was $771,165, which included $304,001 for the Staycations campaign, $119,361 for the Safe-Meetings campaign, and $347,803 for the ad series.

Project Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the project and your company efforts to demonstrate good corporate citizenship in the areas of community involvement, environmental, or socially responsible practices.

Objectives and Goals: What did organization set out to achieve in undertaking this project in CSR? What were the goals you set to measure your success?

Results: How did you measure the effectiveness of your efforts and what direct and tangible results did you achieve? Please be as specific as possible and share the full impact of your efforts in CSR.

Leadership: Please list the individual in a leadership role responsible for the project and how would you characterize their commitment to promoting corporate social responsibility in the travel and tourism industry?

Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals and audience. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?

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)

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?

Situational Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the original initiative and how it evolved as conditions changed from pandemic to recovery.

Goals: Clearly state your goals. What did you strive to achieve with this initiative and how did your goals change over time?

Results: Which of your goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the initiative?

Objective(s): What problems did the sales, marketing & guest satisfaction, or revenue optimization technology aim to solve?

Innovative use of technology: The extent to which new directions are charted or old challenges are resolved by using the technology in a new way.

Implementation & creativity: How was the technology implemented so that it was easy to use, solved a manpower problem, streamlined a function, or fueled recovery?

Results & Evaluation: How did the technologiy move the department or business foward to achieve goals, revenue or otherwise?

Goal: How did you demonstrate that you are committed to advancing diversity in your organization through your marketing?

Initiatives: Describe the promotion. What was your organization's message and how does it foster diversity? How was the target audience channel developed/pursued?

Results: Please describe how your organization was purposeful in advancing diversity through this initiative. Please describe the metrics you used to judge success. What were the forecasted and actual outcomes described in your Key Performance Indicators (KPI)? What impact did the initiative have on your organization and for your customers?

Goal: How did you demonstrate that you are committed to advancing diversity in your organization through your campaigns?

Initiatives: What was your approach to this campaign and how was the organization purposeful in advancing diversity through it? What types of data did you use to support your plan? How many locations were involved in the campaign? How did you effectively reach diverse audiences? What was the message?

Results: What metrics are you using to evaluate diversity (soft and/or hard metrics)? Were you successful at meeting forecasted goals? Was it limited to a specific promotion or across multiple creatives? What impact did the campaign have on your organization? How did this campaign change your brand’s perception amongst travelers?

Entry TitleAdvertising Campaign

DivisionAdvertising - Consumer/Group Sales/Travel Trade

CategoryAdvertising