Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Digital Campaign

The Place to Be

About This Entry:

Less than 10 years ago, the Santa Ynez Valley didn’t exist as a destination. So, it might be considered a bit cheeky to launch a campaign titled “The Place to Be” just a few short years into the marketing of this relatively new destination. And yet, the Santa Ynez Valley is truly that level of magical place that fully lends itself to such a bold promise.

The Santa Ynez Valley consists of a string of six small towns, the combination of which provides a broad range of experiences in a small geographic space. The Valley, located about 35 minutes outside of Santa Barbara, is only a two hour drive from Los Angeles and a four hour drive from San Francisco. The primary obstacle we faced as a new destination was awareness and the competition of much more highly funded destinations targeting the eyes and ears of our large metropolitan audiences.

The Place to Be campaign allowed us to gain a foothold in these markets by featuring inspiring imagery along with bold statements that connected a specific activity with the emotional experience for our audience. This approach allowed us to tell a quick digital story with copy that reinforced this as The Place to Be Connected, The Place to Be Adventurous, The Place to Be Nourished, or simply, The Place to Be.

While this was developed as a brand awareness campaign, it also proved itself to be a highly successful conversion campaign, fitting nicely into a post-pandemic world filled with people looking for that special “Place to Be.”

Campaign Strategy:

As we’ve noted, the Santa Ynez Valley is actually a very small destination targeting two major metropolitan markets, therefore efficiencies with production and media are always imperative. A digital-only effort, The Place to Be campaign was served to a defined audience via paid Facebook, Instagram, the Facebook Audience Network, and YouTube. We also ran a specific set of retargeting ads served to those who had seen the ads or visited the website but didn’t click to book. We ensured variety with the extensive number of executions, but also in the mix of static, video, and Instant Experience ad deliveries.

The activities, experiences, and people featured in the photography and videography were informed by an in depth research project that utilized social listening and intercept surveys to better understand the audience with whom the Santa Ynez Valley has the most appeal. This helped us to narrow and deeply understand the personas behind our visitors and better reflect their interests and themselves in the campaign creative. The full set of lines utilized for the campaign have included:
The Place To Be Adventurous
The Place To Be Connected
The Place To Be Nourished
The Place To Be Curious
The Place To Be Hungry
The Place To Be In Love
The Place To Be Relaxed
The Place To Be Together
The Place to Be

The goal of brand awareness would be measured in terms of impressions and engagement, but ultimately, we are always striving to drive conversion in the form of hotel bookings from the VisitSYV.com site. As we’ll share next, we’ve been beyond ecstatic by the response.

Results:

The Place to Be campaign has been one of the most successful digital campaigns Visit the Santa Ynez Valley has ever run. The bulk of the campaign ran from Nov 1, 2020 through May 31, 2021 (it was paused in December 2020 and January 2021 due to COVID). During this time period, web traffic was up 49% over the previous year (Nov 1, 2019 - May 31, 2020) and 32.8% over Nov 1, 2018 - May 31, 2019. This Paid Facebook campaign was the largest contributor to the increase in traffic.

The Place to Be campaign also drove exceptional on-site metrics with users staying on the site well over one minute, visiting multiple pages and more importantly, clicking to book. Clicks to lodging partners from VisitSYV.com were up 203% over the previous year, and up 77.2% over the year before. Again, the Place to Be campaign was the largest contributor to the rise in clicks-to-book. We saw 1,163 total clicks-to-book from this campaign. Clicks-to-book from Paid Facebook specifically were up 746% over the previous year and 882% over the year before.

Total budget over the reported timeframe was $35,555.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

I love that while this was an awareness campaign, it had a booking element as well. The video creative was strong as was the imagery. Impressive results for a low budget!

Great to see such solid click-to-book stats and smart use of Facebook assets.