National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Digital Campaign

"Cool Times, Warm Memories" - Visit Idaho

About This Entry:

Idaho Tourism was looking for a way to share real stories about the cool winter experiences in the state and warm memories visitors can make. Idaho has numerous cold weather activities and attractions and Idaho Tourism wanted to create videos to showcase winter stories, but wanted to break the mold of traditional promotional videos.

Idaho offers many cool winter experiences and warm memories to be made. Idaho Tourism creatively shared real, joy-inducing stories from four locals that show the possibilities of a Idaho winter escape. Through the fun webisode series, featuring whimsical animation, Idaho Tourism builds an emotional connection with prospective visitors through the stories of four Idahoans:

Megan Bryant – comedian and business trainer – braves the wild dating world and takes a group trip to a yurt
Dan Cummins – comedian and podcast host – recounts his first time skiing at age 43
Austin Foudy – activist and writer – discovers more about himself amid Idaho’s slopes
Leta Harris Neustaedter – social worker, artist and educator – embraces her least favorite season to form a healthier lifestyle

While they tell their stories from the warmth and comfort of Tamarack Resort in Donnelly, Idaho, various animation styles are laid over the narrative reliving the magic of each experience.

The videos are featured on a Cool Times, Warm Memories landing page that presents the residents’ stories along with recommended content about attractions and experiences in Idaho related to each video.

Campaign Strategy:

To create an emotional connection with prospective Idaho travelers, Madden Media pitched the “Cool Times, Warm Memories” campaign concept which would identify four residents of Idaho to tell us their best Idaho winter story.

These stories would be showcased in a video series that highlight the different things during an Idaho winter, and to make the videos unique they would pair the locals’ stories with colorful and dynamic animation. This accomplished two goals for Visit Idaho, they would create whimsical, original videos and create a safe production atmosphere, a must during the pandemic.

Visit Idaho deployed a multi-channel strategy to present and share the videos online. The videos would feature colorful and fun animated stories that brought the residents’ stories to life. A longform video was created for a VisitIdaho.org landing page, a 30-sec video was produced for Broadcast TV and Connected TV, and 15-sec horizontal and vertical videos were developed for Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and Tik Tok.

Blending first-person storytelling from four residents, located in a warm and cozy location in Tamarack Resort in Donnely, Idaho, and whimsical animation, the videos showcase fun experiences four locals had in the state. The bright colors and funny illustrated stories, with stop motion and 2D animation giving viewers a window into the storytellers’ minds, pull viewers in as the videos show the unique attraction of Idaho. The joy-inducing stories and bright animated representations show Idaho in a completely unexpected and fun way.

The landing page features the four webisodes as the main attraction while helpfully sharing recommended content to users looking for more stories about Idaho winter experiences and itineraries to help them plan their travel.

The videos were distributed on Broadcast TV, Connected TV, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, TikTok, and YouTube.

Results:

The strategy for video distribution emphasized Connected TV to maximize the impact of video completions for the 30-sec ad, while also leveraging high impact Broadcast TV opportunities:

Broadcast Ads
-A Super Bowl pre-show commercial in the Seattle DMA earned over 600,000 impressions.

Choozle Ads
-The videos generated over 15,096,235 impressions with an average completion rate of 97%.

Samsung Ads
-The videos generated over 437,000 impressions with an average completion rate of 98%.

Online distribution was used to amplify the campaign by generating video views for 30-sec and 15-sec videos:

Facebook & Instagram
-The videos have generated over 875,000 impressions and over 1,500 clicks.

TikTok
-The videos have generated over 907,000 impressions and over 3,200 clicks.

YouTube Ads
-The videos have generated over 431,088 views and just over 700 Clicks.

Spotify Ads
-The videos generated over 71,000 impressions with an average completion rate of 89%.

The long-form videos were housed on YouTube and generated over 95,000 views, and the landing page received over 19,000 page views.

Additional metrics achieved through our marketing strategy included:
134% YOY increase in website users
150% YOY increase in web sessions
148% YOY increase in page views
127% YOY increase in publication requests
107% YOY increase in digital publications downloads
291% YOY increase in number of sessions with more than three pageviews
99:1 Return on Ad Spending (ROAS) on Epsilon
29:1 ROAS on Expedia
15:1 ROAS on Tripadvisor
15:1 ROAS on Priceline
14:1 ROAS on Sojern
4:1 ROAS on Adara

The Big Picture
Winter (December 2020, January 2021, February 2021) lodging tax collections in Idaho were down just -2% in 2020 versus 2019 and up 9% versus 2018 collections.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Really smart strategy to promote a lower season and still tie into Idaho's existing values based marketing. The outdoor messaging made a lot of sense during COVID but didn't sound too maudlin.

There were many tactics that supported the campaign's goals, and they were effective. I'd be surprised if stakeholders weren't also wowed.