Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
This year, Newport, RI, set out to further enhance its reputation as the Sailing Capital of the World with the opening of America’s first-ever sailing museum. As Newport and Rhode Island’s newest cultural institution and attraction, The Sailing Museum is not only intended to preserve the history of the sport but to also educate and inspire future sailors and innovators.
To further support the museum’s opening and position Newport as a must-see spot for visitors and sailing enthusiasts alike, Discover Newport charged the agency with securing feature coverage that not only tells the story of the destination’s rich sailing history but shines a spotlight on the importance of the new museum for the sailing community at large. With a goal of reaching 100M impressions, the agency compiled a media strategy that would connect thoughtfully targeted lifestyle, travel, luxury and sailing journalists with the destination in the hopes of achieving multi-page feature coverage for the destination’s newest attraction.
To garner significant attention, we hosted top U.S. writers including Boston-based freelance journalist Andrew Sessa to attend the museum’s opening and experience Newport both by land and sea. Our strategy included top level media relations outreach, attracting media interest by leveraging the historic sailing ties to the community and shining a spotlight on the destination’s current interactive offerings.
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)
Given our efforts, The Sailing Museum garnered a lot of buzz. Most significantly, we landed it a spot on Bloomberg Pursuits’ coveted list of 25 destinations to visit in 2022. In addition, journalist Andrew Sessa’s visit to the destination resulted in a feature article in Robb Report entitled, “Newport, Rhode Island, is having a moment: 8 ways to celebrate its Gilded Age.” The article highlighted The Sailing Museum along with new hotels, buzzing restaurants and reopened mansions making this classic summer getaway cool again.
Additional high-level media relations and strategic efforts yielded top feature placements in Condé Nast Traveler and two feature stories in The Boston Globe. Each feature story achieved the destination’s main objective, highlighting Newport as the Sailing Capital of the World and establishing the museum as a beacon for the global sailing community.
As a result of our media relations efforts which included targeted pitching, strategic press visits to the destination, and outreach to local and national broadcast affiliates, Newport garnered over 703M media impressions with an advertising value of over $105M, far surpassing the destination’s goal of achieving 100M media impressions.
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 launch program success was all achieved from a strategic media relations campaign. There was no cost to host Andrew Sessa; Robb Report paid for his trip. Zero additional outlay was involved, and the return on investment was pure gold with a staggering 703M media impressions yielding an advertising value of over $105M. In addition, the destination reported over 75% hotel occupancy for May through August 2022, a 25% increase over 2021.
Entry Title
America's First Sailing Museum Debuts in Newport, RI
Division
Public Relations/Communications - NEW OPENING/LAUNCH
Category
Public Relations/Communications