The Challenge
GA Tourism was suffering from a few challenges – lack of funding for ad budgets, low brand awareness, and the need to message so many diverse offerings within the State. At the same time, the visitor profile was also shifting to a more diverse and younger travel party.
The Solution
It was clear that GA Tourism needed a unifying voice to reach younger visitors and to make their limited dollars work harder together. The campaign in place for more than a decade was sentimental and conjured up a spirit of the “Old South,” and not the vibrant Georgia of today. To contemporize the brand, we married the idea of Southern sensibilities with modern possibilities and introduced an experience-driven campaign called “Pretty. Sweet.” We built a platform for celebrating everything the state has to offer from mountains to seashores, barbeque to seafood, highlighting activities and experiences attractive to millennials and families alike. By focusing on key feeder markets and a multichannel media strategy, we also drove efficiency in the media buy to make it work harder.
The Results
GA Tourism’s revenues rose 3% in year one and 3.5% in year two, and the Pretty Sweet campaign generated a seven point increase in ad awareness – results that were driven without significant media budget increases.