Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
Vacations are great and being a tourist is fine. But what’s truly special is when you can go beyond the limitations of retail tourism and experience a destination as the locals do. And even though, year after year, St. Pete/Clearwater is recognized for being home to some of America’s Best Beaches, if you ask any local, they’ll agree that’s only half the story.
For this program, as an extension to our “Let’s Shine” brand campaign, we invited a series of social media creators from strategic fly markets to experience St. Pete/Clearwater like a local.
For each trip we collected leisure insights from St. Pete/Clearwater locals and then custom designed itineraries for each individual trip to highlight both businesses and locations for creators to experience.
Aligning with our marketing strategy to position St. Pete/Clearwater as a year-round, well-rounded travel destination, we identified priority trip themes that went beyond the surface of just a beach vacation.
Key campaign goals were to:
• Build brand awareness and wanderlust of priority content themes through emerging content creators.
• Expand awareness of destination offerings.
• Drive intent to travel 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)
From December 2022 through August 2023, we hosted ten (10) emerging content creators for custom created itineraries to share their guide to St. Pete/Clearwater beyond the beach, like a local.
To expand the brand image library, and further inspire wanderlust, we contracted and worked with all influencers to either facilitate a behind the scenes photo shoot with our interactive content specialist during their trip or contract them for royalty-free high-res assets.
Storylines Achieved:
• How to explore without limitations like a local with Amanda Steijlen
• How to dine like a local with Giselle Chusan
• How to experience PRIDE like a local with Jose Romero + Dyron Hernandez
• How to golf like a local with Carolina Romero
• How to sip brews on the “Gulp Coast” like a local with Melis Papila, Mel Fox and Holly Goode
• How to adventure like a local with Tee George
• How to, despite being a celebrity, live like a local with Piper Landon
Ten engaged Social Media influencers experienced seven “Like a Local” Content Trips. As you can see below, our numbers are impressive on increasing awareness of our destination with a total reach of 3,710,5533 and interest as represented by 191,489 social media engagements.
Results
• 380 High-res photos for brand library
• 231+ Total Social Media Posts
• 191,489 Social Media Engagements
• 3,710,5533 Total Reach
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?
Per Klear, one of the most trusted influencer marketing platforms, this campaign resulted in an earned media equivalency value of $2,878,402 leading to a 33:3 return on advertising in comparison to the total campaign spend. Beyond that, we achieved our goal of inspiring wanderlust. Across all creator content were glowing comments and inquiries from influencer fans sharing how they have added St. Pete/Clearwater to their 2023 bucket list or noting how they didn’t know you could kayak with manatees, or that the destination was home to one of the largest and most welcoming PRIDE parades in the country plus so much more.
Entry Title
Visit St. Pete/Clearwater "Like a Local" Influencer campaign
Division
Advertising - Influencer Marketing