National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Branding and Integrated Marketing Campaign: State Marketing Budget Less Than $10 Million

Pushing Tourism Can Be Really Hard.

About This Entry:

It’s a bit sobering when Portrait of American Travelers, the respected profile of vacation preferences and intentions, reports that your state is the least likely for people to visit. Disheartening, actually, since it has held that unenviable position for multiple years.

Delve into the reasons why, and you quickly realize that the task ahead is something akin to rolling a 200-pound livestock tank up a steep hill.

Consumers don’t consider Nebraska as part of the typical leisure travel category. It’s not just a lack of awareness or familiarity. Many people are absolutely convinced that there’s nothing to do here. So our state is simply not on the shopping list.

But wait—there’s more.

Because of indifference (“brand apathy” in marketing-ese), consumers said they wouldn’t even bother to research Nebraska to discover something – anything – that might make them consider visiting.

Suddenly, getting that livestock tank up the hill seemed like a walk in one of our beautiful state parks.

We now knew we had to go beyond providing information – we needed to change perceptions. We needed to interrupt deeply ingrained patterns and directly challenge misperceptions. We had to be bold and edgy. Risky, even. So we dutifully informed our industry partners that our solution would probably fall outside of their comfort zones.

We also had to aim at the right audience. Nebraska resonates best with people who are intellectually curious and innately creative. Wanderers, if you will. People who take the time to seek and appreciate nuance. They’re defined not by geography or demography, but by a commonly held core value of honesty. They’re approachable, candid, real, unadorned, modest, uncomplicated, self-aware and not easily swayed by glitz and glam. Just like Nebraskans themselves. Our audience accounts for only 11% of the population, which is certainly not everyone, (duh). But it’s a big enough chunk of the traveling public to be a viable target.

Thus, the “Honestly, it’s not for everyone” positioning was born, giving the state a voice and a platform for its self-deprecating, humored-filled campaign. Quirky. Odd. Interesting. Beautiful. Qualities that Nebraska can honestly own.

Campaign Strategy:

The essence of the campaign is rooted in values-based positioning. Identifying a core human value (honesty in this case) that’s shared between a place and an audience is the road less traveled in destination marketing. The right value can be the antidote for what people are missing in their lives. It creates a craving that people want and need more of. A marketing strategist writing in Forbes appreciated the transparency of this effort and called the campaign “genius,” observing that in today’s culture “Honesty is disruptive.”

But there was method to this madness. First, we analyzed all 210 DMAs nationally to find markets with the highest propensity to deliver visitors. We indexed factors that included travel guide requests, web visits, past visitation and required agreement with 16 different MRI (MediaMark Research, Inc.) psyche proxy statements. This exercise helped us understand how to appeal to this audience and guided our media strategy.

We developed a multi-layered media plan to create as many touch points as possible with our small budget (about $2.5 million), including TV, print, out-of-home, digital, and social. Our targets: Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Wichita, Topeka and Sioux Falls – markets that ranked well in our analysis, but truly were all we could afford. It was all very effective and the results were solid.

But the creative execution made the campaign.

Here’s why. Transparency is simply a buzzword for “demonstrable honesty” – and requires being very vulnerable – maybe uncomfortably. It’s risky. But being vulnerable has proven effective for some brands to rebuild and create trust (remember Starbuck’s Blonde Roast, Honest Tea’s “Yes, that dress does make you look fat” effort, and Dove’s Real Beauty campaigns?).

We used a technique called “inoculation” (marketing-ese again, please forgive). What this amounts to is having the cajones to be painfully candid in acknowledging negative perceptions. Which gets their attention. Then we put a positive spin on things to change those perceptions. We chose “self-deprecating” humor. It’s working. We knew it would, since our testing (yes, we did that too) showed humor was the reason the campaign is so well received.

Results:

Unbelievable.

(Ok, since we’re allowed another 349 words, we’ll use them.)

Immediately after we revealed the new campaign at our annual conference October, 2108, it went viral. Colbert, LIVE with Ryan & Kelly, NPR’s All Things Considered, The Skimm, and even media outlets in Australia and Germany noticed. The campaign even became the talk at numerous travel industry conferences domestically and at two hospitality conferences internationally – in Malaysia and Geneva. (More details are in our entry for Public Relations – but suffice it to say within 45 days, we reached almost a billion people, with earned media value exceeding $7.1 million. Traffic to VisitNebraska.com leaped 195% and requests for travel guides skyrocketed 317%).

All fine and dandy, but what happened when added in paid efforts? In a word, lots.

As background, we’re funded by a 1% lodging tax. That’s it. So the focus is on the bottom line – lodging tax revenue. Right now, we’re beating the all-time record for lodging tax collections – a law put in place in 1980. Bazinga!

We know awareness, favorability, likelihood to visit and visitation all are the result of driving increased visits to VisitNebraska.com, travel guide orders, engagements, interactions, video completion rates, conversions, likes, shares, searches, referrals and organic growth.

So knowing this is a contest entry, we’re humbly including some honestly impressive results. Reminder: our campaign goals were to increase awareness and engagement because we were not on people’s shopping lists- they wouldn’t even take the time to research Nebraska.

Overall traffic to VisitNebraska.com – Users up nearly 40% - about a 60,000 increase year to date, year over year

Travel Guide Orders – Consumer generated requests up 20% (not including bulk distribution)

Target Markets – Traffic to VisitNebraska.com
• Colorado - +110.23%
• Missouri - +112.99
• Kansas - +110.07
• Minnesota - +96.21%
• Iowa - +41.19%
• South Dakota - +40.25%

Interestingly, because of media spillage into other markets, DMAs across state lines and growth in organic and viral reach, site traffic from Wyoming is up 139.55% and Illinois (primarily Chicago) up 100.17%.

Nuf said. Onward and upward.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Judges felt that the honest, authentic, approach to positioning is admirable. Print and static assets are intriguing and well-executed. Nebraska worked with tight budget constraints and drove admirable results.