How can a mountain-west ski resort town drive brand awareness to encourage visitors during the 2021 ski season?
With a short season and ever-growing competition as people are willing to travel farther for ski and snowboarding get-away, ski towns supported by tourism revenue have to be nimble in differentiating themselves from the competitors.
During the 2021 season, a mountain west ski town knew a strategic digital advertising strategy was more important than ever before as travel-apprehension surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak created another obstacle in driving tourists to their town.
To reach their desired target audience – outdoor enthusiast travelers – with timely, strategic advertisements, the town’s tourism board enlisted Digilant’s help.
STRATEGY
Running a national campaign over three months required stringent planning and tactics to reach the desired audience. To do so, the team utilized both first and third-party data segments.
During summer 2020, Digilant ran a campaign for the same tourism board. Using the data from this campaign allowed the team to reach audiences already familiar with the town.
This first-party data was layered with Epic Pass Holders, which helped reach active ski and snowboarders.
In addition to these first-party data audiences, the Digilant team utilized behavioral and contextual audience segments such as outdoor travelers, travel agency users, family travelers, millennials, and second homeowners.
With the target audience in place, the team ran video advertisements through Connected TV (CTV) with a retargeting tactic delivered through display placements.
Video placements on channels such as Discovery, Pluto, the Weather Channel, and Philo reached the audience when they were in the mindset of travel and exploration, leading to a video completion rate of more than 90%.
ATTRIBUTION: FOOT TRAFFIC STUDY
To measure the real-world impact the campaign was having on visits to the town, the Digilant team ran a foot traffic study during the second half of the campaign. Within a two-month period, the study revealed 825 conversions.
Conversions were calculated using mobile and offline location data at a variety of locations within the town, determined by the tourism board.
RESULTS
- Over 90% video completions rate
- 0.11% click-through rate on display ads
- 825 conversions driven from the foot traffic study