VISIT PORT ARANSAS
Guerilla Marketing Campaign
Read More
Situation
Aiming to increase brand awareness and affinity among potential visitors in Austin, TX, we worked in pursuit of an adventurous advertising strategy to position Port Aransas as “Austin’s Beach.” The Find What You Need in Port A guerilla marketing campaign created an experience for Austin residents to engage with the Visit Port Aransas brand like never before. Rather than relying solely on traditional out-of-home (OOH) advertisements, we paired those advertisements with interactive, playful elements to create a memorable brand experience that stood out in the cluttered advertising landscape.
Approach
Our campaign consisted of four main components that were executed through pre-activation media placements and a six-day activation. Those components were:
- A treasure hunt utilizing the “message in a bottle” motif to represent six different value props that can be found in Port Aransas.
- A unique brand experience with interactive elements
- Out-of-the-box media placements and experiences that welcomed and delighted Austin residents
- OOH signage highlighting Port Aransas as “Austin’s Beach” in six different locations over six days
RESULTS
1.7M+ Digital Impressions
28M+ Impressions from non-traditional OOH placements
52.68% increase in new users from Austin DMA
64.37% increase in engaged sessions from Austin DMA
5k+ new visitors to campaign specific landing page
PRE-ACTIVATION
Advertisements were placed two weeks prior to the activation in Austin to build intrigue for the event.
Digital (OOH) in Domain and Domain Northside, a high-end retail and residential district in the Austin DMA that we knew Port Aransas’ target audience frequents.
Hand painted, interactive mural by a local artist to drive awareness and potentially gain earned social media placements.
Wild postings that were placed on iconic buildings in neighborhoods known for being eclectic around Austin.
Traditional media ads on Hulu, Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat based on our research which showed our target audience had a high composition rate and were over indexed on these platforms.
The week of the activation, we deployed a creative swap across the digital Out-of-Home network, social media, and Hulu. The new ads’ message specifically spoke to the details of the activation and encouraged viewers to click through to the site and find the schedule of and where the activation was occurring.
The landing page with the schedule also invited visitors to take a quiz to discover which of the six value propositions they needed from Port Aransas. Once completed, they were served a custom itinerary to further promote planning their vacation.
ACTIVATION
The “Message in a Bottle” campaign revolved around a treasure hunt throughout Austin in which participants looked to find their own “message in a bottle.” Each day’s giveaways focused on a specific theme that represented the six key value propositions of the destination: adventure, natural wonder, quality time, inspiration, serenity, and vitamin sea. Each bottle had giveaways coinciding with the day’s theme and explained how you could find it in Port Aransas.
Instead of having the Visit Port Aransas logo all over everything, we intentionally designed the bottles participants found to be beautiful items first in hopes people would want to continue using them. When we noticed multiple people coming back every day looking for the day’s value prop and entering to win the new giveaway and expressing their disbelief that they were free, we knew we had accomplished the wow factor we were looking to deliver.
One of the core elements of this guerilla marketing campaign was the “mobile beach,” which served as our activation’s home base since all activities were based around the beach. We knew the truck would draw people in and help communicate our hook, “we brought Austin’s beach to Austin, check it out to get a taste of the island life.” While the truck was incredibly eye-catching, it wasn’t just to be looked at. We encouraged visitors to hop onboard to “experience” Austin’s beach by taking pictures with the backdrop, wiggling their toes in the sand, and interacting with the sandcastle, towels, beach balls, and chairs.
We also gave away over 12,000 free items during the activation and, on a hot day in Austin, it was no surprise that the favorite giveaway was our Taste of the Island Life mocktails.
