Objective
In 2017, Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) wanted to establish the US state’s new offers in the German market for next year’s travel season. The destination’s main areas of focus were to be luxury and culinary experiences.
Challenges
Up until then, Virginia was present in the German travel sector only in combination with Washington, DC and Maryland, while within the industry, the US state was relatively unknown to consumers as an explicit luxury and culinary travel destination.
Our solution
We initiated a multi-channel campaign. We picked the luxury and travel blogger Alex Mirschel of NIEDBLOG, who visited the state as an official Virginia ambassador and reported on luxury and cuisine with blog articles, posts, and a video. At the same time, we also took the specialist tour operator CANUSA Touristik on board. They created matching travel packages and promoted them, among others with a postcard campaign in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Hamburg. Under the motto “Wish you were beer”, customers had the chance to pick up beer samples from Virginia in the individual booking agencies and to win travel coupons. We convinced United Airlines to support the new travel offers with special fares, which included some small extras for travelers. The campaign was kicked off in Frankfurt with a reception for the media and partners from the travel industry and with high-ranking representatives from Virginia. We arranged for comprehensive coverage of the event and the new travel offers with a regional TV channel over the course of several weeks.
That certain extra touch
For the kick-off event in Frankfurt, we specifically hired a master brewer from a Berlin branch of a US brewery who presented selected craft beer like the ones that were on offer in Virginia at the time.