CAMPAIGN AUDIENCE AND GOALS:
Goals:
• Combat negative publicity resulting from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
• Alter misguided perceptions about the oil spill’s effect on Florida’s Gulf Coast beaches
Audience:
Consumers from two primary market segments were targeted for this campaign:
1) Repeat winter visitors from the Northeast and Midwest United States.
2) Summer visitors within drive markets with an emphasis on Atlanta, GA and Florida residents.
Strategy & Approach:
For this campaign, more than 7 million emails were deployed over a 10-week period from June through Labor Day weekend.
The first phase featured large, compelling images of people enjoying wide open and clean beaches, plus a prominent call-to-action for hotel savings and vacation guarantees. Also spotlighted were several live beach cams, allowing users to see for themselves that area beaches were untouched by oil.
The latter phase of the campaign focused on the water itself, challenging email recipients to “look deeper” into the area’s pristine Gulf waters. Large, eye-catching underwater photography led to recently filmed underwater videos showing thriving coral and sea life off the St. Pete/Clearwater coast. Again, hotel deals and vacation guarantees were prominently featured, along with “book with confidence” messaging.
The emails also contained links to travel stories, social share options, forward-to-a-friend features, subscribe options and more.
Results At-a-Glance:
• 476,724 emails opened
• 71,202 click-throughs to the VSPC website
• 1,777 “shares” through social media
• 11,800 accommodation deals page views
• Highest-trafficked tourism website on Florida’s Gulf Coast for summer 2010
