A platform built in a crisis that outlasted it
In May 2020, with occupancy down by half, Visit Williamsburg chose to spend into the pandemic rather than go dark. Life. At Your Pace. launched that summer, ran as the destination's platform for nearly five years, and won national awards.
- Company
- Visit Williamsburg
- Years
- 2020
- Scope
- Destination marketing, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast
- With
- Connelly Partners
Context
Visit Williamsburg is the destination marketing organization for Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, with a marketing department of three. I was one of them. In March 2020, hotel occupancy was 21.8% against 45.1% the year before, revenue per room was down 58.6%, and the year's revenue forecast was down a third. Research was already in the field: a perception study in February, campaign testing in March, focus groups in May, weekly sentiment tracking throughout. A bridge campaign, "We'll be together again soon," held a presence while the plan was built.
The problem underneath
The safe move was to go dark and protect cash, and most destinations did. The board instead approved advertising rising from $7.6M to $11.8M against falling revenue, drawing reserves from $8.9M to $1.7M by year end. The research made that a plan rather than a bet: post-COVID travelers wanted open space, no crowds, one stay, a drive under five hours and no flight, which was a description of the destination. The harder problem was perception. Williamsburg meant history, and history alone wasn't why people would come back. Under both sat the insight: after months of a pace nobody chose, people yearned for a regrounding.
The system
The strategy belonged to the room: the CEO, the research partner and Connelly Partners, who created the campaign. In a department of three I shaped the creative, gave lines and feedback, and ran execution and brand standards.
What the room built was a line with a slot in it. "[verb]. at your pace." encoded the insight (your vacation, your control) and flexed by audience and season without a new strategic explanation each time: life, discover, connect, dip, putt, sip, fly, experience, and later, learn. Three personas decided which verbs went to whom. Markets were tiered Proven, Heritage and Expansion, with plans pending market conditions. A co-op program gave local businesses templates so partner advertising carried the same frame.
The work
Outcome
+8%
site traffic year over year from launch through 2020, while U.S. travel fell by half
Nearly 5 years
as the destination's platform, 2020 through 2024
14.2x
lift in exposed-to-visited overlap in the 2023 Northeast push
New visitors were 81.5% of sessions, and ad-attributed bookings ran positive from August through October until the November surge. In 2021 the campaign won eTSY's Best Content Marketing Program and a PRSA Commonwealth Award of Merit. The budget behind it grew from $7.6M to $13.6M by 2024, and the market the 2020 plan held back was taken in 2023, on the same platform. Everything after 2020 happened after I'd left. The platform outlasting all of us is the proof the room got it right.
What I'd change
In 2020 we could measure web traffic and bookings; the proof that exposed people actually visited didn't exist until the 2023 geofence work. I'd push to instrument visitation from the first flight, because it's the number a board wants and the one that ends the go-dark argument.
With Connelly Partners. Research by SMARInsights.