Challenge:
The objective was to develop a unique and compelling brand campaign for South Padre Island, a Texas beach destination.  The new brand campaign would effectively compete with other Gulf Coast and Florida beach choices. The goal was to establish a creative platform that allowed for targeting various demographic and psychographic audiences, changing seasonal travel patterns and traffic-building promotions for a variety of special events on the Island.

Strategy:
We began by looking beyond the standard “travelogue” perspective of most beach destination campaigns, which feature film or photography of the landscapes and places to visit. Instead, we held focus groups to gain insights from beachgoers.  What this revealed was their desire to create their own individualized experiences and find some sense of anonymity.  This lead us to design an advertising look that focused on “people” versus places, allowing the audience to project themselves into those situations and experiences that South Padre Island offers. It was imperative to portray the diverse target audience segments within the advertising visuals, according to seasonal travel patterns and lifestyle activities.

Research was conducted to determine media usage and consumption patterns of the target audience and their geographic markets.  The budget was then allocated to each medium to mirror these patterns.  The media selection was based on the vehicles ability to reach the target audience as well as provide added value to the campaign.  We used magazines for their high quality visual impact as our base to influence long term travel planning.  Additionally, we utilized mediums with an immediate impact on travel decisions such as newspaper, radio and online.  With shorter planning cycles created by “drive” markets it was imperative to impact short-term travel decisions as well.   We created a dynamic presence for the Island through video within web banners and a call to action on both travel specific websites as well as ad networks to provide interaction with the consumer. Additionally, we utilized media with an immediacy factor; cable TV with direct response phone numbers, newspaper and free-standing inserts targeted to specific zip codes with radio to drive consumers to the print insert.  Zip codes were selected based on propensity to travel and to go to the beach.  These inserts also allowed hoteliers and local businesses on the Island to co-op ad space.
Finally, “Video on Demand” was integrated to capitalize on new media technology relevant to the travel industry consumer.  VOD on Journey TV for example provided users with up to 20 minutes of segments showcasing “people” but also provided the client with back-end data of pertinent information such as length of engagement on the site and the geographic information of the consumer.

Results:
Overall the campaign successfully increased hotel occupancy, average daily rates for overnight accommodations and created positive shifts in slow seasonal periods, especially in special event attendance. South Padre Island has begun to attract visitors from new distant fly origination markets, signaling its success in competing with other gulf state and Florida beach destinations. New event promoters are securing dates for activities on the Island, based on the other successful event participation growth; another positive shift in Island activity.
Moreover, we were able to secure added value that doubled the media budget and created further exposure for the campaign through sweepstakes, contests, advertorials, etc. increasing traffic to the South Padre Island website by over 22% as well as increasing leads proportionately.

Launch site
>> www.sopadre.com