National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Social Media Campaign

Discover Your #MontanaMoment Social Campaign

About This Entry:

Walking in history’s footprints at Little Bighorn. Feeling your hair stand up in a haunted ghost town. Cross-country skiing through the unspoiled beauty of West Yellowstone. Montana is all about immersing oneself in unfiltered experiences with nature. Through our Discover Your #MontanaMoment social media campaign, which included monthly Facebook Live events and intricate Facebook canvas units, we were able to bring our potential visitors along on these adventures and let them picture themselves in their own Montana Moment.

With a goal to increase awareness amongst our target markets, these in-depth social initiatives provided the perfect platform to inform and inspire. The monthly Facebook Live events showcased travel opportunities for all seasons and areas of the state while our Facebook canvas units provided details and imagery from sample itineraries such as a 7-day road trip or a perfect snow day spent off the mountain. These social platforms also allowed us the time and real estate necessary to inform our audience: “Montana is safe. Montana is easy to get to. Montana offers modern amenities and it’s not isolated. These informative, in-the-moment tools provided the proof our audiences needed to change their perception.

Speaking of audiences, our three distinct target audiences – Educated Travelers, Families and Winter Enthusiasts – made it necessary that we cover a mix of experiences that could appeal to each. From dinosaur digs to concerts, historical landmarks to helicopter tours, trail running to downhill skiing, we introduced them to the surprises they could find amongst the sweeping landscapes of Montana.

The combination of breathtaking footage and imagery, in an informational format with a dose of Montana hospitality, supported our strategy to break down potential travel barriers, educate our audiences about offerings throughout the state and move them from general awareness to true travel consideration for Montana. We utilized innovative, timely technology, keeping us at the forefront of the tourism landscape.

Campaign Strategy:

Producing the live events was a highly collaborative effort between the Agency of Record, Hoffman York, the Montana Office of Tourism and Business Development, local DMOs/partners and businesses. With each live event running 20-45 minutes, we needed to find the perfect combination of subject matter, host and location. We utilized a local camera crew that could produce high-quality work in some rugged or unusual circumstances. Not only did we want to highlight our brand pillars – unspoiled beauty, charming small towns and adventure by day and relaxing hospitality by night – we needed them to come to life within authentic experiences happening in real-time.

Developing the Facebook canvas units presented some unique challenges…and opportunities. With the goal of keeping our audience engaged within the canvas, we needed to find creative ways to serve up informational content. We created four canvas units, each with its own interactive and immersive component. Creative executions included a six-day road trip between Glacier and Yellowstone, seeing and learning about activities and stops along the way. An interactive quiz that allowed users to find the historical hotspots most interesting to them. Questions asked preferences about topics such as historical eras and types of art. The choose your own adventure option allowed users to toggle between various videos of winter activities – dog sledding or cross-country skiing – to envision their perfect snow day. A photo match game highlighting Montana’s ski area, plus 360-degree panoramic photography to experience the unspoiled landscape.

Once we had our live events planned and canvas units developed, we needed to ensure our audiences would see and engage with these initiatives. Promotion to increase views and engagements included the following. We promoted all live events two days prior through paid Facebook ads. Live Events were posted organically on Visit Montana’s Facebook account; partner organizations also promoted and drove traffic to the event. Following the live event, paid ads continued to push content to increase views amongst those unable to join us live. Facebook Canvas units were pushed via paid ads.

Results:

Overall, we were thrilled with the results. We were able to reach highly-targeted audiences with long-format content that resonated with them. Our potential visitors watched, reacted and, most importantly, learned more about experiences in Montana. Results were as follows:

Facebook Live brought more than 7 million impressions, nearly 92,000 engagements, over 4 million views and our cost per view was $0.03 – $0.04. Facebook Canvas brought 5.9 million impressions, over 60,000 engagements, and over 100,000 clicks to canvas. Winter canvas units logged an average time in canvas over 1 minute; other canvas units garnered more than 30 seconds.

Overall, visitation to Montana was up year-over-year, as was spending. Glacier National Park saw record visitation in 2017, and numerous airports throughout Montana set passenger records. While these social initiatives alone did not drive this increase, we feel this campaign component played in important role in moving potential travelers down the purchase funnel.

The budget for this project – including production and paid media efforts – was $250,000.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

The judges were very impressed with this campaign. The vision, strategy and target audience were clearly defined. The judges liked their use of new tools, and willingness to experiment, get creative and think outside the box. The target customer segments—Educated Travelers, Families and Winter Enthusiasts—is behavior-driven, making the market segments easier to incorporate into the design of the campaign. The metrics were clearly laid out and defined, and the judges were impressed with the results, specifically showing the incremental lift in tourism that the campaign brought in.