Curated Insights for Destination Marketers, by a Destination Marketer
I’ll be honest, it’s not often that I see a DMO commercial spot that is unique and compelling. A lot of them are very similar. A montage of destination highlights with a random upbeat track and a voiceover waxing on about the latest campaign brief.
I saw one on Monday while at TTRA’s Marketing Outlook Forum. As part of Mitch Whitten’s welcome to Fort Worth, the COO for the host DMO shared a commercial spot tied to The Unexpected City campaign.
I was surprised to learn it debuted back in 2023 because I hadn’t heard about it or seen it before. Not because I’m all knowing, but because of how authentic and unique its approach was given the DMO landscape. Leaning into an original 1977 voiceover from actor Jimmy Stewart, the spot provides inspiration that it doesn’t always have to be the same for a DMO spot.
When I leapt from the DMO side to provider/vendor/partner side back in September 2021, I felt very confident in my marketing chops. But I had no idea how much I’d learn simply by shifting my perspective and working with varied agencies, destinations and clients. I loved working at a DMO, but I’m so thankful I made the jump because I’ve deepened my knowledge immensely.
It wasn’t until I was at Adara when I started to more critically question creating hyper-specific boxes for DMO targets to neatly fit into.
I get it. DMOs don’t control the transaction with travelers. Hotels, airlines and attractions do. And because of that, DMOs don’t know exactly who (name, address, loyalty status, etc.) the customer is like the hotel they’re checking into does. That’s generally why DMOs lean so heavily on targeting Leroy Bridges who lives in Seminole, FL (Platinum Bonvoy member) by creating personas that more broadly MIGHT include me, but are built on demographic (geography, HHI, etc.), psychographic (my love for country music and the Purdue Boilermakers) and behavioral data (website activity).
What surprises me is how often marketing strategies prioritize the more generic, less definitive parts of that persona-based strategy with little flexibility. These targeting approaches include an age range (like 35-65), an HHI ($150K+) and specific geographies (East of the Mississippi).
If I could deliver your message to a more relevant traveler based on past purchases or real-time travel search data, why does any of the other matter? Who cares if someone is 34, and not 35?! Or has an HHI of $140K? Or coming from one state away from that imaginary line I’ve created?!
The only reason those attributes matter is when you can’t unlock more valuable data tied to relevant travel searches and purchases.
- Allegiant Airlines is a tough data nut to crack. How about targeting any purchasers of an Allegiant flight in the past 2 years from the more than 50 non-stop markets that fly into St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport? Regardless of any other attribute.
- Competitive conquesting means very different things to different platforms, but at Adara it’s about leveraging real-time travel search data. Not Google search. Someone goes to Marriott.com, types in dates for a stay in Dallas to price shop. I can think of a dozen Dallas-area DMOs who would love to get their brand in front of that potential visitor. Talk about getting in front of people who are valuable regardless of their age.
- Hawaii is focused on regenerative tourism. What better way to reach travelers to fit the mold of giving back to a destination than to leverage past purchases from brands that align with that ethos, like Tom’s, Patagonia and Ethique.
The power of relying on past purchase data or real-time search data is infinitely more valuable than targeting me because of how old I am or where I live. Yet, those characteristics are driving more marketing than ever for DMOs, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
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The next time you’re building or reviewing a marketing plan I encourage you to think about the data that’s powering the targeting of the plan.
