Destinations Council Destiny Awards > International Marketing

Best of California Campaign

About This Entry:

In an effort to increase awareness of San Diego and grow incremental hotel room nights for San Francisco among potential Chinese visitors, San Diego Tourism Authority (SDTA) and San Francisco Travel Association (SFT) launched consumer direct advertising in China supplementing each organization's foundational travel trade and public relations efforts that had been in place for many years.

Preliminary research conducted during planning revealed low awareness of San Diego overall and a limited perception of the San Diego travel experience beyond beaches. Furthermore, San Diego’s lack of direct air service out of China was yet another barrier to growing visitation out of the market.

Based on the insight that Chinese travelers visit 2.5 places in the U.S. per trip, SDTA looked to northern California, the preferred west coast gateway for Chinese Travelers and formed a cooperative partnership with San Francisco Travel (SFTA) to link the iconic gateway city of San Francisco with the rising popularity of San Diego. The resulting “Best of California” campaign creatively linked the two destinations together under one cohesive theme where visitors started their journey in San Francisco, experiencing it’s breathtaking scenic land spaces, world-class shopping, superb restaurants and diverse cultures and then made their way south on an one of the 55 flights each day to San Diego, where beachside attitude meets big city excitement.

The program targeted Chinese FIT travelers, age 18-45 in Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities in China.

This campaign was a first-of-its-kind co-op between San Francisco and San Diego and was leveraged even further with co-op participation from Hilton Hotels and Brand USA.

Campaign Strategy:

SDTA and SFT worked with digital agency, Hylink, on creative development, media planning, and buying for a fall campaign flighted 8/22/18 – 11/14/18.

The team uncovered a knowledge gap among potential Chinese travelers when it came to California. While aware of cities in the north and south, potential visitors weren’t overly familiar to the unique attributes of those cities. They identified the attributes that would be embraced and cherished by Chinese travelers and communicated these elements, visually and verbally, in a creative yet strategic manner in order to inspire travel.

The “Best in California” campaign leveraged the brand pillar commonalties of the two destinations (outdoors, culture and culinary) to highlight the distinctive “California” qualities and experiences unique to each city. For example, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge paired with San Diego’s Balboa Park; Napa Valley wine was paired with San Diego craft beer; and hiking the North Coast was paired with kayaking at La Jolla Cove.

With the call to action, “Complete your best California Trip” (from San Francisco to San Diego), the campaign ultimately provided Chinese travelers with a broader picture of the diverse travel experience that awaits in California.

Advertising was distributed on Ctip, China’s leading online travel agency, and WeChat, utilizing a blend of awareness-building and performance-based booking placements. Users were inspired through engaging landing page content and custom travel products that packaged airfare and multiple night hotel stays in each destination.

Results:

The total budget for the program was $420,000.

The campaign delivered 54.47 million advertising impressions and 260,863 clicks (0.48% click-through rate); signaling both awareness of San Diego and interest/consideration.

Strong delivery and user engagement with advertising resulted in a 50% year-over-year increase in total room nights across both destinations.

The integrated cooperative campaign was so successful, San Diego and San Francisco continued their partnership with a second campaign flight leading into the summer travel season.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Judges commented on the uniqueness of this duo-DMO campaign collaboration under "Best of California" concept. With a strategy was developed based on Chinese traveler insights, the campaign delivered significant measurable performance. This performance was based not only media data such as impressions and clicks, but also performance data including room night bookings. The goal of driving awareness and generating interest to Chinese travelers are well set and achieved through measurable results.