Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
Many destinations have struggled with the state of travel in recent years, but perhaps none have felt the gravity of multiple crises in succession like Sonoma County, California. Since 2017, the destination has faced natural and climate-induced disasters including devastating wildfires, damaging floods and dangerous droughts threatening the foundation of the regional economy. Eager to welcome visitors back to its destination, Sonoma County Tourism challenged Fahlgren Mortine to create an integrated recovery campaign using paid, digital, and earned media to awaken the spirit of travel and remind visitors of the laid-back, luxurious experiences the destination provides.
Targeting Strategy: To achieve immediate travel and attract visitors, SCT targeted audiences in drive and regional flight markets who were in the mindset to travel again yet seeking safe, nearby experiences. While the geographic targeting was strategic, SCT needed to deliver a message that was ownable and innovative, knowing that competition for these travelers was fierce.
Brand Message/Positioning: Since the debut of Sonoma County’s brand “Life Opens Up,” SCT has leveraged this openness to inspire visitation. What was once a nod to the world-class wine experience needed to become more – a deeper connection that only Sonoma County could own. After analyzing values-based research about pandemic travelers (source: Gartner, Stylus, 2020), SCT developed a comprehensive value proposition focused on being the destination where pandemic “Life Opens Up” – literally, through one-of-a-kind wellbeing/healing experiences.
With a digital focus that showed measurable results, the team created a successful campaign that made a direct, immediate impact on the community and outperformed regional competitors.
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)
The team created a successful campaign that made a direct, immediate impact on the community and outperformed regional competitors.
Sonoma County Tourism executed its campaign with:
• Creative advertisements that showcased aspirational, first-person imagery within core pillars of food and wine, outdoors and wellbeing. Each image complied with pandemic safety recommendations — for example, showcasing travelers enjoying the spacious outdoors, al fresco dining and solo wellness experiences. All included poetic language representing how the featured activities make travelers feel. Each image concluded with the destination’s trademarked brand “Life Opens Up,” now fully redefined.
• Unique storylines that highlighted local businesses and emphasized sustainable travel through ongoing pitching, paid integrations, and engagement media opportunities, such as familiarization trips.
• Digitally-driven travel content that created intent-to-travel actions.
• Comprehensive earned efforts including an immersive press trip, ongoing story mining/pitching/development, virtual desk-side meetings, select influencer hostings and more.
SCT partnered with six travel and wellbeing-focused influencers to develop trip itineraries custom-designed to achieve a specific result – like sparking creativity, practicing gratitude, and seeking out love and laughter. Each itinerary featured an array of activities aligned to these specific goals, and influencers were invited to Sonoma County to put their itinerary to the test. Influencers were documented as they enjoyed their custom itineraries, and they also shared their experiences on their owns blogs and social media channels, confirming the expert truths about being intentional when traveling. SCT turned the content captured from each trip into interactive travel inspiration for consumers by creating a custom landing page (SonomaCounty.com/wellbeing) which features commentary from experts, videos, and downloadable content.
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 results speak for themselves, specifically:
Earned:
• 561M+ earned media impressions with local, regional, and national outlets.
• Paid:
• 46,281,186 impressions
• 1,940,346 video completions
• 138,128 clicks
• 30% CTR
Owned (digital content):
Inspiration Guide: Digitally driven visitors guide with a seasonal strategy
• 1,988,928 pageviews
• 4:59 avg session duration
• 39.65 pages per session
Consumer Email: Monthly/custom emails
• 4.01% avg CTR
• 41% Open Rate
Visitors Map: Popular map product featuring wineries and breweries
• 200,000 distributed
Web Partner Ads: Website ads and featured partner listings
• 19,600 clicks to partner sites
• 2,121,658 impressions
Overall Partner Referrals
• 800,509 referrals to partner sites
• 36% increase YoY
The full surround of campaign components and digital partnerships performed above industry benchmarks and drove impact. According to a third-party ROI study conducted by Longwoods International, the campaign generated 1.5M incremental trips to Sonoma County that otherwise would not have materialized in the absence of this integrated marketing push. The vast majority of the incremental trips were from those markets that Sonoma County Tourism targeted. Campaign ROI was an impressive $203:$1; with an additional $21 collected in taxes for every ad dollar spent.
Entry Title
Reawakening the Spirit of Travel in Sonoma County: "Life Opens Up"
Division
Public Relations/Communications - MARKETING PROGRAM - Consumer
Category
Public Relations/Communications