National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Digital Campaign

Tennessee Department of Tourist Development

Vacation Matchmaker

About This Entry:

Tennessee has a diverse set of offerings across the state. What appeals to one person might not appeal to another. Knowing that relevancy increases engagement, we set out to create a completely personal Tennessee commercial for each individual viewer. So, we created the first ever pre-roll ads edited in real time to match all the viewer’s online behaviors, likes, and interests.

In the time it takes to load pre-roll, millions of data points about the viewer are analyzed —they stream country music, make dinner reservations at steak houses, subscribe to outdoor magazine and much, much more. Then a matrix of hundreds of video clips of Tennessee activities is scanned to find matches, and a commercial perfectly aligned to the viewers interests is editing and displayed in real time. So rather than seeing a tourism ad that tries to appeal to everyone, viewers saw a custom commercial created just for them. The geo-targeting filter even ensured the attractions shown were within driving distance of the viewer’s location. They could then explore the attractions featured in each scene of their vacation on Tennessee’s website. So they could plan their real trip to Tennessee and share it with others.

Our targeting was a bit of a paradigm shift in advertising. We didn’t create content with a specific target audience in mind. Instead the content was created in real time based on data of that individual viewer. So, we only set some broad demographic and geographic targeting parameters.

Campaign Strategy:

We created an edit with five variable sections, then developed a matrix of hundreds of video clips of Tennessee activities tagged by interest categories. A data provider collected the available impression data about the viewer in real-time and then matched them to related Tennessee video clips and instantly cut together a commercial and served it up as pre-roll.

The campaign ran during April to capitalize on when travelers are planning their summer vacations. Because we didn’t set specific targeting, we worked with a media partner to run across a variety of premium and niche sites to garner 36.7 million impressions over the four-week period.


The videos drove to Tennessee’s website where viewers explore the attractions featured in each scene of their vacation or choose from hundreds more to create their vacation itinerary. These were then shared on Pinterest — inspiring even more travelers our media may not have reached.

The methodology to evaluate success for the campaign centered around highlighting our partners’ offerings by maximizing video views and impressions online, driving website traffic to tnvacation.com and itinerary shares via social media.

Media partners included Spongecell for dynamic ad technology.

Results:

- 332,889 hours of video exposure
- 46% increase in Tennessee tourism’s website traffic
- 93% of people surveyed said the ads inspired them to take a vacation to Tennessee within the next year
- CTR three times the industry average
- 53% completion rate (3% more than industry benchmark)
- 17,442 itineraries shared on social media

The budget for the campaign was $400,000.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

The campaign was unique in that it was very targeted, and had incredibly broad appeal. The tactic works well for people looking to travel far or stay close. Since the ads were so specific, they could really inspire a 'staycation.' The design and user-interface looks great and is very user-friendly. The drag-and-drop trip planner is a great way to get people engaged and play around with the idea of a trip. It was a great idea to touch an emotional cord with parents with the limited time they have to spend with their children. There was a great usage of research and marketing strategy. The results were very impressive with an almost 50% increase in traffic.