The tourism marketing and industry services agency for Central Coast NSW picked up the bronze award in the Travel, Leisure and Media category at the 2019 Effie Awards. The award recognised the remarkable achievement of shifting perception for unprecedented return on investment through Tourism Central Coast’s “Have a Little Adventure” tourism campaign.
Following research that revealed a perception problem for the Central Coast as a destination, Tourism Central Coast’s marketing agency AFFINITY executed the Have a Little Adventure campaign through television, digital, social, outdoor advertising and public relations to power perception change.
“We utilised television to talk to Sydney broadly, with a focus around travel programming and digital to target our core profitable audiences Generation X and Empty Nesters as part of a data-driven media strategy,” said AFFINITY CEO Luke Brown.
“Rather than trying to talk to all people in Sydney through digital, we concentrated on our core segments and Sydneysiders that we detected were in the market for a short break.”
From June 2017 to March 2019, the campaign drove significant behavioural change with 943,000 incremental daytrip and overnight visitors (+19.5%) getting off their couches and going to the Coast. They stayed an additional 471,000 nights (+9.8%) and generated a huge business impact – an incremental $186,000,000 in tourism spend (+22.3%)
The campaign was supported with over $250,000 of investment from Central Coast businesses including Australian Reptile Park, Accom Holidays, Forestry Corporation of NSW, Ettalong Diggers, Westfield Tuggerah, Blue Lagoon Resorts among 38 participating companies.
“Effective, targeted destination marketing driven by data and research works.” said Tourism Central Coast Director of Industry Services and Partnerships Russell Mills.
“We can confidently discount other factors over the same period. The weather was similar, with temperatures, sunny and rainy days equally as good the previous year. There were no new major events to act as a catalyst for date specific visitation, Australians continued to travel overseas in droves, there was no significant economic change during the period and we didn’t gain or lose any competitors in our category.”
“It’s hugely rewarding to have our campaign recognised for its role in improving perceptions and re-establishing tourism growth on the Central Coast.“
Tourism Central Coast is a consortium of three companies – AFFINITY, Surfer Rosa Communications and MyTravelResearch.com tasked to lead tourism marketing and industry services under contract to Central Coast Council.
