National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Industry and Strategic Partnerships

New Mexico Media Menu Cooperative Marketing Program

About This Entry:

The New Mexico Tourism Department developed a co-op program that was built to extend the New Mexico True brand across all co-operative marketing tactics and provide participating partners with a fully managed service.

The goals of the program are the following. We hope to provide options to meet diverse range of partner needs and budgets. Strategy: The Media Menu Program provided New Mexico tourism entities with a pre-defined set of fully managed advertising and content creation programs available at pre-negotiated rates (and subsidized by the Department by 50 percent). Our partnership with Media Menu Program had a participation rate with 26 tourism entities, that opted in to 92 different MMP Advertising Programs and 42 Content Marketing Programs.

Our next goal would be to leverage our funding with industry partner funds for greater media buying power of all parties involved. Strategy: The cost of the program was subsidized by the state at 50 percent, but the result of creating the New Mexico True brand extension co-op Media Menu Program provided over $1 million of additional media value to them.

We would also hope to enable efficient production of engaging creative assets that meet brand standards. Strategy: To help partners with humble budgets and few creative resources to produce branded advertising, Katie Connolly & Assoc. developed a videography/ photography production option, oversaw the creative process, and marshaled qualified resources to yield quality video and still assets otherwise unattainable by participating partners.

Our next goal would be to improve cooperative advertising creative quality and consistency. Strategy: Brand stewardship was managed by Katie Connolly & Assoc. via an online portal "Ad Builder Tool Kit", which was required for creative submission & approval. Partners were responsible for accessing brand templates and submitting appropriate ads to Katie Connolly & Assoc., who ensured final approvals for brand consistency and timely trafficking to the media vendors on behalf of the partners.

Finally, we would hope to deliver unprecedented performance reporting to ensure our campaign and our partners objectives are met or exceeded. Strategy: Participating partners were each provided per program reporting and a State level wrap up.

Campaign Strategy:

Multi-Media tactics were available to all New Mexico tourism entities via the Media Menu Program. Partners utilized the "Ad Builder Tool Kit" for New Mexico True ads, and a custom asset collection and approval process.

When reviewing our digital tactic, we received 2,765,433 impressions via TripAdvisor for the following locations and we received 2,848,486 impressions via Expedia for the following locations; Taos and Spanish Colonial Arts.

When reviewing the Native Articles & Video Distribution we found that Stack Adapt received 8,333 Article Engagements and 62,500 video views. These were connected to Indian Pueblo Cultural Center and Los Alamos in New Mexico.

The Native Article Creation & Social tactic with Roots Rated + FB received 207,203 Engagements (50 percent program completion - 126 percent over 100 percent guarantee). These were connected to the Eagle Nest, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Los Alamos, NM B&B Association, NM Wine, Silver City, Taos, Truth or Consequences, Espanola Valley Fiber Arts, Grant County, NM Wildlife Assoc., Sandoval County, and Taos Ski Valley.

We did 30 and 60 second ads for 84 weeks on NM True Television. We received over 714,000 impressions on NCC OTT from January to March 2018. We reached 3.3 million people with ads on IAH Airport Digital-Spanish Colonial Society and reached 24 million people in Phoenix Airport Digital- Silver City. In-State we connected with NM Wine, Spanish Colonial Arts, MainStreet Las Vegas and Taos Lilac Festival. We had circulation of 500,000 with print ads in multiple magazines. We also received 75,000 circulations, 40,000 impressions and 30,000 e-news views per partner with the multiple magazine publishers. Southwest Magazine Advertorial -Artesia, Navajo Nation and Santa Fe, Spanish Colonial Arts print ads also brought us 4,998,000 in reach and 97,000 through email. Texas Monthly Magazine Advertorial -Navajo Nation, Santa Fe, Artesia, and Spanish Colonial Arts brought us 300,000 in circulation and 26,000 connections via emails. Lastly, Print: D Magazine Advertorial -Spanish Colonial Arts, Taos, Ski NM, Artesia = 500,000 Circulation November 2017, April 2018

KCA provided rigorous performance reporting by program and by partner to ensure met deliverables for each campaign, as well as optimization opportunities.

Results:

As referenced, we had 5 goals of this program: greater media buying power, meet diverse range of partner needs, creative quality and consistency, efficient production of engaging assets, and comprehensive reporting & performance measurement. The tangible results lie within each of the objectives set. The actual programs were evaluated based on the type of media tactic that ran.

We had over $1,000,000 of marketing funds at work which led to a greater media buying power. We had 26 New Mexico Tourism Partners that participated which met a diverse range of partner needs. The development of online ad builder ACE "Tool Kit" and use of JotForm for content submission helped with creative quality and consistency. We had 92 Media Menu Programs opted in for and executed met a diverse range of partner needs. We had 42 New Mexico Content Programs executed which met a diverse range of partner needs, creative quality, consistency, and production efficiency. Centralized ad trafficking, production management and reporting promoted our creative quality, consistency, comprehensive reporting & performance measurement.

The following are our results from this program. We received over 6 million digital impressions with an average CTR .25 percent linking back to partner sites with New Mexico True branding. The 86,000 emails sent out had an average open rate of 28 percent and partner click through was up 4 percent. We had 42 Native Articles created and loaded to NewMexico.org. We received 422,739 engagements with Native Articles linking back to NewMexico.org. We received 771,925 video views (675,835 Videos Completed) from the New Mexico True approved video. With TV we had a 375,000 audience reach on New Mexico television channel. We also had a 30 million audience reach via OOH exposure. We received 1,375,000 circulations with our print ads. We also had three New Mexico True Video production projects.

All advertising was approved New Mexico True branded and approved by NMTD for quality and consistency.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

New Mexico took an original approach that combined the strengths of many organizations with more limited budgets and targeted the unique attributes of the state. This was an attractive campaign utilizing a “menu” of tactics, meeting the needs of a range of stakeholders.