National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Public Relations Campaign

Year of the Wyoming Woman

About This Entry:

Wyoming Office of Tourism (WOT) aims to drive demand for travel to the state of Wyoming through a robust marketing program centered on the core human value of adventure. Research shows that WOT’s audience is adventurous not just physically but intellectually. Therefore, WOT built programming that speaks to the bold spirit of its travelers.

For Wyoming women, trailblazing is a way of life. So, it’s no surprise Wyoming was the first to guarantee women the right to vote and hold office – 50 years before the rest of the nation. To showcase the monumental anniversary, Wyoming declared 2019 the “Year of Wyoming Women” leading up to its actual anniversary on December 10.

WOT set out to own the national conversation around women’s suffrage, ahead of the 19th Amendment’s 100th anniversary in 2020. The goal of the campaign was three-fold: increase visitation to the state and build awareness for Wyoming’s role in women’s suffrage while encouraging state partner participation. WOT and its public relations (PR) agency, Edelman, led the core strategy and messaging for the campaign, leveraging its destination partners to curate female-focused experiences that would inspire future travelers.

To build awareness and excite future visitors, the PR team activated a strategic earned media approach to tell the story of Wyoming’s heritage, highlighting female leaders of the past and incredible women of Wyoming today. The anniversary challenged preconceived notions about the “Cowboy State,” sharing Wyoming’s lesser-known history and reclaiming its true nickname, “The Equality State.”

To inspire future travel to female, national audiences and leverage interest in women-only travel, Wyoming and its destination partners across the state curated events, installations, activities and more to highlight strong women and introduce female-focused experiences to visitors. The earned media approach was to share the relevance of the anniversary and deliver a call to action by offering experiences that could lead to increased visitation and participation.

The campaign was also supported through additional integrated elements such as a Travel Wyoming website landing page, a hashtag used to engage the community, advertising, social media and paid amplification efforts to create a seamless campaign across all channels.

Campaign Strategy:

To kick off the “Year of Wyoming Women,” the PR team identified historians, tourism experts and Wyoming women to feature in ongoing media efforts. Through strategic outreach, interviews and creative activations, Wyoming was positioned as the leader in the women’s suffrage movement and a destination offering empowering travel experiences.

Earned Media Efforts & Activations
•Developed year-long outreach strategy, engaging travel, lifestyle and news verticals to tell stories of Wyoming women during the anniversary. The approach earned Wyoming a place among the “52 Places to Go in 2019” by The New York Times (NYT).
•Executed two-day New York Media Blitz during Women’s History Month. Tying in the anniversary, WOT invited destination partners and female leaders in their industries, including a State Senator and the head of F&B at Yellowstone to share stories of the west with journalists.
•Delivered 25 culinary mailers showcasing Wyoming women-owned businesses to journalists.
•Hosted multiple press trips highlighting the anniversary and female-focused experiences. Activities include a preview of the “Women in Wyoming” exhibit, a pack trip/yoga horseback ride with female guides and more.
•Wyoming Governor Gordon proclaimed December 10 “Wyoming Women’s Suffrage Day.”

To engage the community, WOT built a landing page for the anniversary on its website and posted both paid ad and organic content across social channels, leveraging the hashtag #ThatsWYWomen.

Integrated Approach
•WOT’s advertising agency put paid amplification behind earned media placements including NYT, Afar and Nylon.
•Secured a paid partnership with TripAdvisor for a custom article describing how the “Equality State” earned its nickname.
•Promoted women’s suffrage themed digital ads and placed print ads in magazines Sunset and Pioneer Woman, as well as the 2019 Wyoming Travelers Guide.
•Invested in broadcast to promote the December 10 anniversary celebrations.

A key component of tying the anniversary back to tourism, stemmed from an internal initiative asking destination partners to curate experiences that speak to Wyoming’s history and female empowerment.

Example Tourism Experiences
•Permanent women’s suffrage themed art installations in Cheyenne.
•Women-only hiking trips through Wyoming’s mountain ranges.
•Sweetwater County created the “Proud Wyoming Women Retreat” inviting 120 women to participate in networking and wellness experiences.

Results:

Budget: $221,000

Earned media efforts and activations drove the narrative and awareness towards women’s suffrage. Strong, feature length stories in top-tier national publications across the travel, lifestyle and culinary verticals increased awareness and visitation. Overnight visitors increased 3.3 percent and travel spending increased 3.7 percent year-over-year in 2019, with this campaign among the elements supporting the increase in visitation.

The campaign garnered 528 million(M) impressions across earned placements, social media and paid efforts.

Public Relations Initiatives & Results
•Earned editorial generated 498M impressions and 307 articles in 2019. Anniversary coverage was secured in outlets such as The New York Times, Forbes, Nylon, Bustle, OZY, Culture Trip, Hello Giggles and more.
•The New York Media Blitz resulted in 48 total engagements with media from publications including Travel + Leisure, Departures, Food & Wine, Martha Stewart Living and more.
•Shared culinary mailers with 25 media including O, the Oprah Magazine, Food Network Magazine, AFAR, Cosmopolitan and more.
•Secured 25 articles from individual and group press trips to the state, where media partook in female-focused experiences.
•Wyoming Governor Gordon declared December 10 “Wyoming Women’s Suffrage Day.”

Integrated Support & Results
•The Women’s Suffrage landing page created on travelwyoming.com generated 25,399 pageviews, with an average time on the page at 3:34 seconds – well above the average viewership on the website.
•Usage of the hashtag #ThatsWYWomen resulted in 400+ social posts, generating 1.75M impressions, 46.1 thousand(K) engagements between May – December 2019.
•Three earned pieces of content (NYT, Afar and Nylon) received paid amplification, earning 7M impressions and 14K clicks. Eight additional social posts received paid amplification, resulting in 4M impressions.
•Produced custom article with TripAdvisor for a paid partnership highlighting Wyoming’s history, garnering 11K page views and a conversion rate of 4.74% to TripAdvisor POI listed pages.
•Organic and paid social posts for the article resulting in 15M impressions and 14K clicks.
•Digital ads secured 2M impressions and 686 clicks. Cohesive print ads were shared in Sunset, Pioneer Woman and featured in the 2019 Wyoming Travel Guide.
•Radio broadcast spots centered around the December 10 anniversary resulted in 213K impressions.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

The campaign was focused, well developed, and implemented across multiple marketing channels. The campaign encompassed a deep level of investment in the messaging and distribution and brought stories from the past and present to life. The recognition of the women in the culinary boxes was excellent. Great opportunity to highlight Wyoming's history in relation to the anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

The vision for this was clear, to make Wyoming the leading expert in the 19th Amendment's 100th anniversary. They creatively used images from the past and present to highlight why this was such an important milestone and received buy-in from not only women from across the state but also organizations and businesses and politicians, for complete state support.