Missouri’s very own Negro League Baseball Museum is going into its third decade of existence.
To commemorate the achievements of this institution and those who are enshrined within, the state of Missouri asked Hoffman | Lewis to place an ad in the 20th Anniversary museum program.
A simple, thoughtful tip of the cap was created. But there was a chance to do more. With a few conventions coming to Kansas City in the coming months, a collector’s set of three posters was produced to tout this one-of-a-kind gem to visitors from out-of-state.
New Missouri tourism campaign takes road trip to Humorville.
When you start with a line like, “Don’t take less of a vacation, take a vacation for less in Missouri,” you’re bound to get dads pulling kids on skis behind lawn tractors and couples taking a spa day at the local public fountain, right? No? Okay, let’s back up.
Fact #1: Hilarity is not a natural byproduct of extensive research and focus group testing. Fact #2: Tourism ads must consist of wall-to-wall destination shots. Fact #3: Don’t trust facts.
Going into this campaign, team H/L delved deep into research, finding that although the recession had impacted traveler motivations, 70% of them still expected to take a vacation and that value was a top driver for making travel decisions. Armed with this knowledge, several different concepts were created, four of which went into testing. As the process unfolded, it became clear that not only was a value message important, but that humor more effectively drew people in and broke through the clutter.
So let’s recap… By following all the rules of conventional tourism marketing, we created a campaign that breaks all the rules of conventional tourism marketing. Funny how that works out. Enjoy.
Poof. Adios. Gone missing. That’s the verdict on the Kidnapped Chicagoan—according to several posters plastered in and around The El and buses throughout the windy city.
Each poster playfully points out that one of Chicago’s 2.9 million people has disappeared and directs the reader to KidnappedChicagoan.com to find out where he is.
Once there, the viewer gets a whirlwind tour of the mystery city (St. Louis, in-case you couldn’t tell) along with tweets, Foursquare updates, a streaming ‘Kidnap Kam’ and plenty of other content to dive into.
This is the first-ever campaign from the St. Louis CVC directed exclusively toward Chicagoans. And it’s a bold one, forgoing the traditional imagery of the city with a big St. Louis logo in favor of an intriguing message to pull you into the story of one man’s journey to the gateway city. Wait. Just noticed “gateway” is an anagram for “getaway.” Maybe we should’ve done “The Great Gateway Getaway” instead . . . Na. This is way better.
