About the project
Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department (OTRD) asked us to help them increase state awareness, drive traffic to TravelOK.com, and push economic growth for Oklahoma tourism. They already had some beautiful ads running, but 2013 changed everything.
That year, while researching with OTRD, we noticed a key attribute about those beautiful ads; they were similar to everyone else’s. They featured stunning landscapes, and you wouldn’t think a shimmering lake is ever bad to spotlight, but California has shimmering lakes too, and Colorado, and lots of other states. And so from 2013 forward, it was time to do three things:
- Take eye-level camera shots that made people feel involved.
- Tell stories through interaction with people.
- Focus not just on amazing things within Oklahoma, but on amazing things that are unique to Oklahoma.
And its biggest challenge
To some outsiders, we’re just a flat, hick, weather-ravished, time warp—so how does one push past such unattractive stereotypes? One shoves. We knew we couldn’t just impress people with these ads. We had to blow minds before they could be changed.
The 2013 turnaround
To increase awareness of Oklahoma’s wide range of activities and remarkable destinations, while also protecting our state’s traditions, we found an overarching element to act as the glue: the song “Oklahoma”. Then, we added some rolling hills, smiling faces, and hip hangouts—and the outcome was a seat at the top of the tourism game. Specifically targeted regions were Dallas, Wichita, Amarillo, Little Rock, Joplin, and Springfield, but the campaign blew way past the targeted audience. It leaped to number one nationally.
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The 2014 shove
Because the 2013 ads widened eyes and dropped jaws, the 2014 campaign had to perform as a one-upper. It still required reaching out-of-staters who had previously shown interest in visiting Oklahoma, specifically people in Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Plus, it had to motivate them into action—Oklahoma action. Focus groups proved authenticity was key. People liked seeing real Oklahomans engaged in uniquely Oklahoman activities in the 2013 ads. So this time around to have the same effect, we had to dig deeper—unearthing and featuring experiences that even Oklahomans didn’t know existed.
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The results
Our client = our biggest resource. Deep research was vital to helping us make the right kind of Oklahoma-intrinsic tourism campaigns. OTRD led us to the right people and places to film. They had all the needed information, but getting that information wasn’t easy. We had to draw it out of them. They didn’t know what they knew, but by working closely with OTRD to extract their profound knowledge, we got there. It was their intimacy with Oklahoma, and ours with them, that enabled us to make such captivating commercials.
2013
486%
year over year growth in site visitation
#1
state tourist site in April
2014
4 million
views on Youtube
42,257
site visitors on June 30 breaking the single-day traffic record
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