National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Digital Campaign

2017 Digital Media Campaign

About This Entry:

The following details the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism’s digital media plan.

Our main objectives are to drive visitation to Arkansas, generate awareness of Arkansas as a viable vacation destination and create awareness of the Arkansas marketing message. We also plan to generate mass reach against adults as well as Arkansas’s specific demographic and niche audiences, drive visits to Arkansas.com where consumers can gain more detailed information on Arkansas and tourism entities in the state and create engagement with potential travelers.

Our media strategies are as follows. With geography we must maximize the impact of our media budget, support was concentrated within the key feeder states surrounding Arkansas – Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. Support was also placed within Arkansas to help generate in-state travel. With timing; ad support was concentrated in the months of April, May and June during the spring/summer marketing period and in September and October during the fall period to provide a stronger presence for the state during each period. This timing also aligned with our traditional media support to maximize creative messaging impact when Arkansas was on-air.

With target audiences, the digital media plan targeted the following various demographic and niche activity audiences. We targeted adults 25-54, women 25-49, mature adults 50 and over, millennials and families. We also targeted people who enjoy food, girlfriend-get-away, hunting, fishing, motorcycling, cycling, mountain biking, canoeing and kayaking and travel.

With media usage trends, we placed 34 percent of the overall 2017 advertising budget into digital media to reach consumers where they are now spending most of their daily media time. When reaching consumers on mobile devices, we saw 70 percent of Arkansas’s media impressions ran on mobile devices as consumers now spend the majority of their digital on these devices. To maximize creative impact, 85 percent of our media inventory ran as video to generate maximum creative impact against Arkansas’s target audiences. To maximize reach we pursued with a presence across websites, connected TV programming and social networks. Digital television support ran April and early May, mirroring the timing of broadcast and cable television.

Campaign Strategy:

With ad technologies we found that pre-roll and native videos reached consumers watching video content online and provided greater creative impact. DVAST contextually and behaviorally personalized videos served to consumers based on data. Mobile data targeted mountain bike and motorcycle owners in their homes on mobile devices. Internet Of Things drove consumers from the Arkansas television commercials to the mobile website through Shazam tagging. Native content reached consumers through less intrusive content ads. Geofencing targeted visitors at tourism destinations in surrounding states (Alamo, The Arch, Graceland, etc.) with mobile video and banner ads.

With digital ad campaigns we used a blend of mass reach websites, niche sites and local sites to maximize reach against various target audiences. The mass reach sites we used were Pandora, Shazam and ad networks. Niche sites included AARP, Meredith Women’s Network, Outdoor Channel, BikeMagazine, Bicycling, Motorcycling, Canoe & Kayak and Trip Advisor. The local sites we included were Dallas and Arkansas TV stations sites.

With connected TV, to reach changing viewing habits (smart TVs, connected TVs, laptops and mobile devices), we placed 24 percent of television dollars with connected TV partners such as HULU, Crackle, PBS.com, NationalGeographic.com and others. Our partnerships –extended digital reach and budget. Travel South purchased video and content partnerships with Sojern and Matador Media as part of group buys with other states through the Travel South association. National Geographic implemented a cross-media sponsorship that included online, television, connected television and in-magazine support. COOPs implemented a digital retargeting coop program for in-state travel partners. Arkansas drove visits to Arkansas.com. Visitors were retargeted with banner ads from local tourism entities participating in the coop program.

With evaluation methodology, the primary success measurement was growth of the two percent tourism tax. This is a metric of tourism spending in Arkansas. Secondarily, all digital ad placements were tracked using UTM codes. These allowed Arkansas to track visits to the website by medium, creative, device, etc. through Google Analytics. The key success metrics for Arkansas were visits to Arkansas.com, pages viewed as well as cost-per-visit.

Results:

The results of the 2017 digital media plan were very successful based on the following previously-stated key metrics. Our total 2017 digital media budget was $1,679,563. Visits to Arkansas.com specifically from digital campaign received 566,022 visits. An increase of 63 percent over the 347,401 visits generated in 2016. Our cost-per-visit was $2.97, 24 percent more cost-efficient than the 2016 cost-per-visit of $3.45. Our page views were 692,880. A 63 percent increase over the 425,740 pageviews generated in 2016. We received 134,538,707 impressions. A 58 percent increase over the 84,927,486 impressions generated in 2016.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

This campaign had great creative—the vision was clear; the audience was well defined and the judges felt inspired by the “Natural State” brand. This campaign was a very effective campaign and accomplished all its goals. It was compelling and incorporated new and innovative channels to promote engagement. The brief, the results and the scope of the campaign were extremely well-defined, and the approaches used really hit the mark. This was a complicated and large-scale initiative that incorporated the latest and greatest in marketing tools and channels, and it was extremely well-done and well-tracked.