Washington State Tourism and CMG Seattle

Background

Washington State Tourism office will officially close on June 20, 2011. Tourism is the 4th largest industry in the state. All other states are increasing their Tourism dollars and the state of Washington has completely cut theirs. The office needed to do one last big push to get more people coming to the state of Washington and hopefully prove it is an office worth keeping.

The Challenge

The office wasn’t sure they were going to have any marketing dollars to get their message out and needed to find media partners willing to do “Pro Bono” with the potential to earn 100% exclusive of any dollars they may find. This campaign needs to get visitors to the state of Washington for the upcoming summer months and increase awareness in Washington State Tourism.

The Idea

If we can get every resident in the state of Washington to have one person visit we could generate 20,000 jobs. With this goal in mind we needed to develop a multi-platform campaign using the power of Television and digital platforms. We needed to reach out to smaller markets in Eastern Washington (Spokane & Tri-Cities DMA) and have them embrace the campaign as “Pro Bono” and understand the value in helping the office out with running a three month campaign. The campaign is called "Share Your Washington." Through a 30-second commercial, 2 minute viral video and multiple online elements, we are encouraging Washington State residents to go on-line and invite family and friends to come visit the state of Washington. For every person they invite, they are entered for a chance to win two tickets to anywhere Alaska Airlines flies in Washington and two tickets anywhere Alaska Airlines flies globally.

The Resource

This campaign utilized the combined power of Television and digital platforms. We used the power of KIRO TV and RTV with a 30-second message airing on both stations and ran the 2- minute viral on RTV. The two minute viral message also had a fixed blurb on the entertainment channel on kirotv.com so viewers could click and watch. We further enhanced the campaign with a channel page off our "Shop Seattle" channel, plus rotating banner ads rotating throughout our site, text links, a corner peel ad on the our home page, mention on our Twitter following, fixed position in our contest section, inclusion in our e-newsletters and a fixed logo position on our mobile site.

The Results

We went into the campaign expecting to run the campaign as "Pro Bono" and we walked away with new business dollars to our station. The campaign is still currently running and will end on June 15th. Feedback from the client is they are hearing a lot of buzz about the campaign and people are going to the website to invite guests to the state. Also, the campaign is catching the eye of other chamber of commerce offices who are now seeing the need to find dollars to keep promoting our state. Once this campaign ends and the office is closed, individual chambers will need to step up to the plate which means NTR money for our station and the market.