Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Branding and Integrated Marketing Campaign: Destination Marketing Budget $5 Million to $10 Million

Persona Brand Campaign

About This Entry:

Deep in the heart of Texas, San Antonio is a destination that attracts millions of visitors annually, honoring its rich history and culture as well as its modern growth. Even with the healthy tourism base, Visit San Antonio wanted to develop a more strategic program to grow brand awareness and visitation. With a city that is fortunate to have such a variety of assets, from cultural heritage and historical landmarks to family attractions to culinary evolution, the question was Where to focus? in order to most effectively achieve these objectives.

Visit San Antonio and its Agency of Record, The Atkins Group, partnered with research duo Epiphany Research and Destination Analysts to develop a study that would help the team deeply understand the San Antonio traveler segments and the personas that represent the most potential for visitation and economic gain.

With over 9,000 respondents to the survey, the research team analyzed the psychographic, demographic, trip spending and other behavioral details of those interested in and likely to visit San Antonio—as well as their ratings of San Antonio’s attributes and destination motivators—and identified four primary traveler personas:

● History, Arts & Cultural Traveler (HAC)
● Urban Traveling Family (UTF)
● The Food Obsessed (Foodie)
● High Energy Educated Urbanite (HEEU)

These data-driven traveler personas, representing the most potential for increased visitation and economic gain, became the focus for the new branding campaign, which launched May 2018 and is ongoing through 2020. A detailed profile for each persona informed the specific target audiences and appropriate messaging (age, HHI, travel times, travel parties, types of experiences enjoyed, most appealing destination attributes, specific San Antonio assets visited or would like to visit). Geographic targeting is based on a Brand Development Index across a variety of variables, indicating which markets have significant interest in visiting San Antonio and or require more awareness. With the evolution of the audience targeting, the Visit San Antonio/Atkins Group team developed a campaign centered on the four personas.

Campaign Strategy:

The specific objectives and measurement approach of the campaign for FY2019 (October 2018-September 2019) are:

● Increase awareness as measured by Online Engagement, which shows interaction with the brand and is a combination of web site visits and social media engagement on Visit San Antonio channels; the goal for FY2019 is 20 million. Awareness will also be measured by a bi-annual Awareness & Image Study to be completed in June 2019. The goal is to achieve brand familiarity of at least 68 percent.
● Reach the specific San Antonio traveler types through multi-targeting based on behavior, demographics, location, etc. The allocation of resources by persona varies by season based on persona potential economic impact of each specific persona. Total estimated impressions for FY2019 are 661.3 million.
● Show a 7:1 ROI based on actual destination visitation measured through Mobile Device ID tracking of devices who viewed campaign ads and are seen to visit San Antonio.

To achieve these goals, the media plan reaches each persona across multiple channels, including print, digital, social media, OOH, TV and radio. Different creative was developed based on the research insights regarding what that persona likes to experience or is interested in seeing in San Antonio. The creative follows real families, friends and couples on their visits to San Antonio doing the things that specifically appeal to them. Qualitative research also informed the format and direction of the creative.

Results:

The campaign is on track to achieve the objectives and reach the measurement goals. As of April 2019, Online Engagement is 16.3MM, 62% of goal and 97 percent above year-to-date projections. The A&I Study is under development and will be completed in June.

Messaging to personas can be dialed up or down as needed by season. For example, for Summer 2019, the primary time for family travelers, campaign targeting and messaging will be allocated as follows: 30 percent HACs, 50 percent UTF, 10 percent HEEU and 10 percent Foodie. In late August that balance will change to 45 percent HACs, 30 percent UTF, 15 percent HEEU and 10 percent Foodie.

The estimated annual impressions by persona are HAC 30 million, UTF 26 million, HEEU 9 million and Foodie 7 million. In addition to targeting these personas on the demographic and behavioral levels, we are also able to layer in additional persona attributes like: targeting those interested in an emerging local food scene, those who have visited an attraction or theme park within the past year, or those looking for a rich arts and culture scene, allowing us to target and retarget to a very precise audience segment.

In January 2019, systematic tracking of actual visits to San Antonio through Device IDs was fully implemented. For January-March, the campaign targeted 13,718,384 unique mobile devices. During that time frame, 90,107 total visitors who saw a campaign ad were tracked back to San Antonio, for a .66% conversion rate and a 39:1 ROI for Q2. The ROI reflects an estimated revenue of $27,392,528 (based on research data regarding San Antonio spend per trip) and campaign costs for the time period.

The new, integrated San Antonio brand campaign showcases the city’s vibrancy and authenticity efficiently and effectively to the most relevant travelers and is bringing results.

The total budget for Visit San Antonio’s leisure media plan is $3,238,000.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Parsing out the traveler segments was a well-thought out plan to increase visitation. A beautiful blend of data and creative. From the outset, the vision possesses specificity in its knowledge of what Visit San Antonio currently does well, and what could be even better. Goals are clearly defined and measurable. Program partners are abundant and add value. The four personas created are distinct, while at the same time keeping the number of personas to four allows for greater efficiencies and reach. Print creative is outstanding and video is above average. Given the $3.2 budget, the campaign is performing well.