Situation

With nearly 10 million people in and around the Greater San Francisco Bay area, there is an immense opportunity for nearby Tri-Valley, just 35 miles east of San Francisco, to build incremental brand awareness and increase visitation from drive markets. While having such a large drive market presented an opportunity for Tri-Valley, it also meant that Tri-Valley had stiff competition from other nearby destinations vying for attention. Tri-Valley needed a way to distinguish itself within the market and stand out from the competition.

APPROACH

Not only is Tri-Valley one of California’s oldest wine regions with thousands of acres of outdoor recreation space, and award winning restaurants, it also happens to have sunny skies 300+ days of the year. With these unique, positive, and sunny attributes in mind our creative team developed a distinct identity that draws tourists seeking memorable and uplifting experiences.

The “Sunny Side of the Bay” brand campaign was brought to life, tapping into the search for the sun, connecting foggy drive regions to the many ways to stay, play, and look on the sunny side of the bay, right in California’s Tri-Valley.

While distinguishing it from other destinations, this campaign also reshapes Visit Tri-Valley’s image, emphasizing the positive aspects of the community through the images chosen paired with ways to experience the sunny side of the bay.

Building Awareness

Now armed with a strong brand identity, we set out to build awareness. We partnered with rich media vendor, MobileFuse, to deliver a local-focused ad unit that put the spotlight on the communities that comprise the Tri-Valley and the things to do, places to eat, and where to stay on the sunny side of the bay. 

Allowing the viewer to interact with the ad and discover their own story and interests in the Tri-Valley was essential to the user flow of this placement. 

In addition to Google Prospecting and Responsive Display and Meta Prospecting campaigns, we also took advantage of Visit California’s Expedia co-op program. It allowed us to leverage destination specific bookings while capitalizing on awareness throughout our key target markets.

By utilizing Visit Tri-Valley’s vibrant color palette and the Visit California template, we were able to create engaging ad sets through the use of vibrant, sunny photography, with people enjoying the outdoors and food scene in the destination. These ads linked back to an Expedia branded landing page where travelers could book their stay to the Sunny Side of the Bay directly. 

RESULTS