On April 22, I have the incredible opportunity to speak at Rural Roundup, a travel marketing event for the amazing communities and travel marketers in my home state of Nevada.
With travel marketing on my mind, I wanted to bring together a few campaigns from the world of travel that I absolutely love. Not just to share with travel marketers – even though I’m sure many of you readers are coming from that world – but with everyone within marketing as well.
Much of what we do in marketing and market research transcends industries, having more to do with the mindsets, goals and aspirations of our audiences than anything else. That’s why I’ve made sure to capture how every marketer can take advantage of the insights illustrated in the following four examples.
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So, without further ado, I present to everyone four travel marketing campaigns I love (and why)!
Pure Michigan.
In 2006, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation sought to retire their existing state travel branding propositions, and solicit a new advertising strategy. That responsibility fell on the Michigan office of McCann Erickson, part of the world’s leading ad agency network.
The team worked through countless, painstaking hours to uncover what it meant to truly market the state for travelers at its full capacity. And within their market research, they uncovered an incredibly important truth: The primary role of advertising for a state destination isn’t to tell people what they can do there, but to help them understand what it feels like when they visit the state.
With that in mind, the agency set to work on developing a marketing creation that truly encapsulated how it felt to visit Michigan, with its stunning natural amenities, four adjacent Great Lakes, small towns, authentic cities and more.
The result was Pure Michigan, one of the most well-known travel brands throughout the U.S.
In 2008, much of the world’s economy collapsed, and few states felt the impact as hard as Michigan, who was home to much of the U.S. auto industry. Yet, thanks to the strategies employed by Pure Michigan marketing, the state’s tourism maintained a moderate level of success that helped generate needed economic boosters to assist its population in riding through the Great Recession.
Today, Pure Michigan has become so successful that it has even been adopted as an unofficial motto for the state. With its colorful promotions, Pure Michigan always manages to exude exactly what it seeks – the fresh air, the sounds of water and trees blowing lightly in the wind, and altogether the beauty of Michigan.
Destinations must adopt this important thinking, understanding that they are proliferating experiences more than any other focus through their marketing strategies. Through incredible copywriting and messaging, that same ability to reach and move audiences is available to any destination willing to identify and adapt the right marketing insights about their travelers.
Dundee, the Film that Never Was.
In the world of advertising, there’s very few ‘ads’ that people actually seek out on their own. Sometimes the funny ones or the ones that leave a heartwarming message are shared on social media for a few weeks, but in general, consumers are rarely (if ever) sitting around counting down the hours for a new commercial to release. Except for film trailers.
Today, film trailers are one of the most watched types of video content online, with viewers actively watching and rewatching these (often misleading) 2 to 4-minute clips before and after the films have released. As a result, many production companies now have countdowns and watch parties specifically for the release of the trailers for films!
Which is why a film trailer became the perfect opportunity for one of my all-time travel marketing campaigns.
In 2018, big-name actors Chris Hemsworth and Danny McBride were announced as the stars of Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home, a sequel to the hit Crocodile Dundee series starring Australian actor Paul Hogan. And the trailer to this highly coveted film (honestly, I was stoked for it!) was going to be released at the 2018 Super Bowl!
I remember exactly how I felt when I first watched this trailer. It started, McBride getting off a bus to meet Hemsworth, and the two began touring the Australian outback. Eventually, they visited beautiful beaches, wineries, villages, and before long, Danny McBride finally asked the important question that had started to creep into my mind as well: “Is this just an ad for tourism in Australia?”
As it turned out, that’s exactly what it was. No movie, no Dundee sequel (to my dismay), and instead a truly clever opportunity to suck millions of viewers into captivatedly watching a destination marketing message for Australia.
The strength in this campaign is from its use of unexpectedness to capitalize on true marketing axioms. For many tourism destinations, it’s very difficult to attract extreme viewership and genuine excitedness for your content, especially by comparison to some other die-hard fan industries. Whether this is true of your destination or not, being able to create moments that take advantage of these truths, rather than attempting to counter them, is working within the real mindset of your travelers.
Discover how your travelers are engaging with content – any content – and creatively decide how to adapt your own strategy into that reality. The results will be mind-blowing, which is exactly how I felt when I realized I’d been duped on my Dundee follow-up film dreams!
What Happens in Vegas.
I would be remised if I didn’t include What Happens Here Stays Here in this discussion of incredible travel marketing executions, as it was actually the first campaign I ever had the privilege of working on!
In 2003, advertising agency R&R Partners devised a new tagline for Las Vegas tourism. The campaign featured hilarious executions showcasing Vegas visitors in situations that simply made it obvious that who you are in Vegas doesn’t have to be who you are everywhere else.
The power behind the campaign, and the component I want to make sure everyone understands, is the absolutely amazing strength in the copywriting.
Messaging is one of the most important parts of what we do as marketers, and being able to devise messaging that taps into the hearts and minds of your audience is an absolute must for truly stellar marketing to happen.
“What Happens Here, Stays Here” embodies the real insights behind how Las Vegas travelers really view the destination, and what they hoped to achieve while visiting: the power to be someone else!
The campaign has since gone on to feature countless executions, always keeping up with the times. From hard-hitting international versions to targeted summer promotions, the tagline has been reinvented again and again, constantly maintaining a forefront seat in the minds of travel audiences.
How can your destination create the same succinct-yet-powerful messaging, like we saw with Las Vegas or Michigan before? It starts by knowing what the audience thinks about and wants from your destination!
Men in Kilts.
About halfway through 2020, my wife casually suggested we watch a show called Outlander together. Five seasons, high ratings, I was in – and WOW, what a whirlwind of a show!
For those not in the know, Outlander is a story involving a time-traveling heroine who accidentally gets stuck in 1700s Scotland. As you can imagine, there’s a whole lot of shots of Scotland in this show!
But the show that really captured my attention, and the final one I wanted to discuss in this article, is one that’s not actually involved with Visit Scotland at all: Men in Kilts.
Men in Kilts is a show starring two of Outlander’s lead actors, Sam Heughan (Jamie) and Graham McTavish (Dougal), in which the real-life men explore the ins and outs of their native Scotland. And I have to say, as someone who really found Scotland fascinating from the first show, this one takes that fascination for me to another level!
Everything from sports, to food, to the raw culture of this incredible corner of the world is presented in enchanting detail, and someday soon you can be sure I’ll be visiting this incredible destination myself.
But, as I said, Visit Scotland is not involved in this production. So, why have I brought it up? Because it’s pivotal to one of the most important aspects of travel marketing today: Listen to your audience.
The team behind Outlander has long been listening to their audience, and one of their key takeaways was that the audience was falling in love with Scotland while falling in love with the show. As a result, Starz, who learned two of their stars were planning to launch a Scotland-heritage podcast, saw a huge opportunity for their own brand and viewership and helped them take it to the next level.
Men in Kilts was born from that desire, and that desire came entirely from the audience’s wants, needs, and interests. And that is how incredible marketing happens!
Visit Scotland might not be behind the Scotland interest-inducing vehicle, but they are definitely capitalizing on it. The DMO has created maps and other marketing materials to help their visitors experience the real filming locations of the show, as well as offering a 12-day Outlander tour itinerary to experience all the locations in efficient detail.
The takeaway? It’s not always the destination itself generating audience interest, but when that audience interest is there, it’s up to the destination to capitalize on the marketing opportunity!
Make your travel marketing even better!
Marketing a destination, like marketing anything, is about communicating with the audience throughout their marketing journey. Whether that be through clever public relations strategies, engaging social media content, or outstanding television and Internet commercials, the goal behind what we do is always the same: reach people, and move them to action.
Does your destination have a marketing goal, and not a strategy to get there? Let me help! Schedule a free consultation with your team and mine by clicking here!
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