Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Special Projects

Visit KC

Chicago Experiential Activation

About This Entry:

In spring 2016, Visit KC launched a new brand campaign, "That’s How We Do Kansas City." To help bring the new brand to life and grow it beyond traditional regional reach, Visit KC and its partners developed an integrated experiential marketing campaign to show Chicago #HowWeDoKC. With the goal of engaging consumers, media and event meeting planners, the team conceive and coordinated multiple events in the Windy City in June of 2016 to coincide with a matchup between the World Series Champs, the Kansas City Royals, and the Chicago White Sox.

The Chi-town Throwdown featured three days of events intended to show Chicago exactly How We Do KC—and in many cases, how the city stacks up favorably against the competition. To kick off the campaign, Visit KC took over the lounge at the Fulton Market Kitchen, a popular restaurant and cocktail bar, offering consumers a taste of Kansas City with a head-to-head bartender challenge. Day two consisted of award-winning Kansas City barbecue getting delivered to downtown Chicago thanks to a custom Kansas City food truck along with entertainment from a KC jazz trio. On day three, the Kansas City Royals took on the Chicago White Sox at US Cellular Field and Visit KC was there to cheer on the boys in blue. With VIP guests including media, meeting planners and social media influencers, Visit KC created a tailgating experience featuring a chef’s challenge between KC and Chicago chefs and complimentary Boulevard Brewing Company beer. During the game, Visit KC hosted 70 industry professionals in two VIP suites to enjoy Kansas City hospitality at its finest as they cheered the World Series champs to victory. The intimate setting provided one-on-one exposure with media, social influencers and travel professionals to engage with the Visit KC sales and PR teams. Kansas City history was also incorporated with a traveling exhibit from the Negro Leagues Museum.

Target Audience/Markets:
Chicago travelers who may not have considered visiting Kansas City in the past
Meeting planners who may not be aware of Kansas City as a top meetings destination
Media who may have overlooked Kansas City

Campaign Strategy:

In addition to the tailgating experience, the Fulton Market Kitchen takeover, head-to-head bartender challenge and barbecue food truck, the three-day event was also supported extensively through social media, PR components, and a digital media strategy targeted towards Chicago consumers. Media encouraged consumers to create their own custom Kansas City itinerary, and all components of the campaign focused on #HowWeDoKC. Success was evaluated based on achieving a substantial economic impact through collective impressions, engagement and visitor information—such as estimated LOS, daily spend, total visitors/party size, in addition to increased web traffic and sweepstakes entries.

Overall campaign idea, strategy, tactics, results and objectives can be found in the attached PDF which should be opened with Adobe Reader in order to view interactive elements.

Results:

The Chi-Town Throwdown activation garnered 51 million media impressions, increased website traffic over 246 percent and created buzz throughout Chicago’s media channels, including the Chicago Sun Times and The Chicago Tribune. Additional ROI opportunities were created and secured with Chicago-area meeting planners. The estimated economic impact of the campaign was $1.5 million with Chicago air travel increasing in 2016 to account for 9 percent of Kansas City’s visitors. The focus of Chicago as a market increased gross market reach of aware traveler households to 2.7 million, topping 2015 by nearly 700,000 households and reaching a new record for Visit KC.

Overall campaign idea, strategy, tactics, results and objectives can be found in the attached PDF which should be opened with Adobe Reader in order to view interactive elements.

Budget: $303,000

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Visit KC had a great concept to build a friendly rivalry between neighboring cities. Objectives and vision were clear, and campaign results were clearly achieved. The concepts and methods were articulate, and the program was well executed and innovative. There was great media follow-up to support the initial concept.