Biz Blog Profile Series: Real People Real Road Trips - PA Tourism Office
08/16/2005
Biz Blog Profile is a behind the scene look at how corporations, non profits and higher education institutions are using blogs to support their marketing goals.
Hipsters, Hogs, Vultures, Thrill Seekers and History Buffs. Nope, it's not an MTV reality show ... but you're close. It's real tourists blogging their travels around the great state of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylania Tourism Office launched a series of customer-written blogs this summer - Real People Real Road Trips. Videos were included and comments opened. Innovative use of the medium to provide a 3-dimensional experience of the product. Thanks to David Gong, Ripple Effects Interactive, for his help with this case.
Biz Blog Profile: Real People Real Road Trips
About the Pennsylviania Tourism Office
The Pennsylviania Tourism Office is dedicated to fulfilling the needs and aspirations of travelers by presenting them with the information and resources they need to plan and enjoy the activities, attractions and destinations that are uniquely Pennsylviania.
Why the Pennsylviania Tourism Office is Blogging
Blogging has become one of the most popular forms of online communications, because it's often transparent and authentic. Blogs provide the ideal outlet to have a direct and unfiltered conversation with an audience. The PA Tourism Office was interested in using user-generated comments on its site, allowing visitors - actual tourists - to share their views and tell their stories in voices that are natural and authentic.
The goal was to allow users to contribute content not just consume it. Instead of professional marketing copy, PA wanted to use its website to open an exchange of travel ideas so that consumers could share experiences, offer advice, and recommend trips to other people/tourists/visitors.
The roadtrippers - who are real people not spokes models - have passions that match the interests of PA's targeted audiences:
-outdoor adventure
-history and heritage
-culture and entertainment
-amusement parks
-motorcycling
An additional goal is to position Pennsylvania as a pioneer in the interactive medium.
How Blogs Fit into the Pennsylvania Tourims Office's Marketing Strategies
The PA Tourism Office understood storytelling is one of the most effective ways to showcase PA's unique and athentic attractions. Blogging was a natural extension of a marketing strategy that focused on storytelling.
The ultimate objective of the blog was to attract tourists to the state. By giving potential tourists stories of real people (told by real people) with interests similar to their own, and their adventures in PA, the state believeed many will be motivated to visit and experience what PA has to offer.
In addition, the roadtripper bloggers extended the Ready-Get-Go brand promise - fun, spontaneity, an adventure around every corner, the journey is as fun as the destination - to a promotion that allowed real people to experience these first hand and allow others to relive them.
Selling-in To Management
The main challenge for Pennsylvania Tourism Office's agency, Ripple Effects Interactive, was making PA Tourism Office comfortable with the freedom variables involved in hosting bloggers. Once PA Tourism was satisfied that a minimum level of direction and control would be maintained over the campaign, it was very much behind the project.
How The Pennsylvania Toursim Office is Marketing Real People Real Road Trips
The marketing strategy was rich and diversifed including both online and offline tactics. Two 15-second Real People commercials ran on cable in PA and contiguous states. Rich media Roadtrip blogger online video banners were included on sites such as accuweather.com, WashPost.com and NYTimes.com. Keywords were purchased on search engines such as Google and Yahoo!. Press releases went out on the wire and to selected publications. There was an on-going media relations effect to reach out to strategic bloggers to build momentum in the blogosphere.
Lessons Learned
The selection of future roadtrippers will likely be more open to the general public. For the sake of the speed to launch, the casting call for this round of roadtrippers was limited to acquantancs and word-of-mouth from the various promotional agencies involved.
Future Directions
Without a doubt, the Pennsylvania Tourism Office will continue to explore the strategic avenues possible with having visitors submit their own stories to the site, whether it is future bloggers or some other form of user-generated content.
Sidebar: The Pennsylvania Tourism Office's next innovative project is podcast tours. Cool!
