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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMiles_Partnership_Marketing_Services_Proposal_for_Visit_SLO (1)March 4, 2024 Mina Robertson, Vice President 916-792-0187 | Mina.Robertson@MilesPartnership.com Destination Marketing Services Proposal for the City of San Luis Obispo Tourism Business Improvement District (Visit San Luis Obispo) 1 SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo 1 Miles Partnership is a strategic marketing consultancy with global reach. We began as an entrepreneurial venture, and that spirit of seeing and seizing opportunity has remained with us. Creating, curating and distributing compelling content that inspires travel has been central to who we are—and what we provide our destination partners—for more than 69 years. Today, we embrace innovation, creativity and doing things differently to deliver unparalleled results. As an agency focused solely on the travel industry, we have a deep understanding of travelers and the products, messaging and media that drive visitation. » Qualifications & Description of Prosper SERVICES & ACTIVITIES 2Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SERVICES & ACTIVITIES We currently work with more than 150 destinations, hospitality businesses and other tourism partners around the world. The vast majority of our clients are DMOs with needs and challenges similar to those of Visit San Luis Obispo (Visit SLO) and they run the gamut from cities and regions to states, territories and countries. Our team is experienced in every aspect of travel and tourism, from website development, content creation and storytelling to research and data, industry participation and destination management. Our decades of experience and wide-ranging resources have built a pervasive, detailed and nuanced picture of domestic and international travelers—their motivations, interests, worries and concerns—and how to turn aspiration into action. Each year, we invest $500,000 in independent, third-party research to develop smarter strategies—including campaign creative and the messaging and media we use to reach target audiences. This research-based approach, combined with expertise gleaned from our management of more than $185 million in media on behalf of our clients, means we understand how creative and media work together to deliver results. COMPANY HISTORY: Originally established in 1954, the company became known as Miles Media Group in 1990 and changed its name to Miles Partnership, LLLP in 2016. Miles is a full-service agency that is 100% focused on travel and tourism, and has been providing marketing services since the company’s inception. LOCATIONS: Miles is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, and Lakewood, Colorado. The address from which the primary work on this contract would be performed is 13952 Denver West Parkway, Suite 200, Lakewood, CO 80401. NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 370 (367 full-time/3 part-time) OWNERSHIP, ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND ACQUISITIONS: We are a partnership. Miles Partnership, LLLP is owned by 1% Miles Partnership II, LLC and 99% Miles Partnership, LLC. Within the Miles Partnership umbrella are several companies: Odyssey Content Studio, with expertise in branded-content strategy and distribution, including video production and photography; Ad+genuity, an Independent Trading Desk (ITD) that provides programmatic managed-service solutions utilizing multiple demand-side platforms (DSPs); Black Diamond, a London- based integrated communications and public relations agency working with an international portfolio of travel clients; Tourism Exchange USA, a digital platform that provides an open marketplace connecting the real-time inventory of tourism-product providers with global and local distributors; and Coraggio Group, a leading business- consulting firm in the travel and tourism space. In fact, Coraggio Group collaborated with the San Luis Obispo TBID to develop your 2019-2024 Strategic Plan.We’re excited to do the same for Visit SLO. We have taken a targeted approach to help tell the stories of prominent DMOs such as VISIT FLORIDA, San Francisco Travel Association, Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism, Choose Chicago, Alaska Travel Industry Association, Louisiana Office of Tourism and Chattanooga Tourism Co. 3Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo KEY COMPETENCIES: Strategic Services/Brand Development Ad Campaign Creation & Execution Creative Strategy Development Media Planning & Buying Social Media Management Content Creation & Syndication Website Design & Development Turnkey Print Publishing Services Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Consulting Direct Marketing Services SEO/SEM Email Marketing Programs Social Media Marketing Production of Sales Collateral Art Direction of Photo Shoots Video Production Event/Trade Show/Promo Support Revenue-Generation Programs Sales Co-ops Measurement & Reporting Our Research-Based Approach We strongly believe in independent, third-party research to drive program measurement and optimization. We have close working relationships with leading research firms such as Phocuswright, Future Partners, Civitas, Downs & St. Germain and Longwoods International. We also partner with some of the most sophisticated specialist agencies and media partners across the travel space, such as Near, Basis and ADARA, which ensures our strategies are rooted in the latest platforms, technologies and media channels. SERVICES & ACTIVITIES Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion At Miles, our vision is to be the global leader in strategic solutions that inspire and improve travel. At the core of that vision, we are driven by our commitment to actively advance diversity, equity and inclusion to evolve equitable and inclusive marketing industry practices, drive innovation within the company and empower our team, our clients and the communities we serve. We believe that our clients are in a key position as an authority in the travel industry to drive dynamic economic opportunities within their communities. Together, we will take intentional actions to foster DEI within our clients’ overall strategic goals as well as in the marketing strategies we create on their behalf. We believe a deliberate and strategic approach to DEI within a destination will foster innovation and bring together a wide variety of voices and experiences when promoting tourism and sustaining local economies. 4Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SERVICES & ACTIVITIES Awards & Accolades Our client work has garnered more than 140 awards across content creation, design, website development and brand campaigns in the past three years. Highlights of recent client accolades include: 2023 U.S. Travel Association Destiny Award for Visit St. Pete/Clearwater’s Travelzoo Digital Campaign 2023 Gold HSMAI Adrian Award for U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism’s Everywhere Approach to Marketing 2023 Bronze HSMAI Adrian Award for Maine Office of Tourism’s Stewardship-Driven Strategy & Brand Campaign 2023 IAC Award for Alaska Tourism Industry Association’s "Also Known As" Alaska Campaign 2022 Platinum HSMAI Adrian Award for “Venturing Out: Park2Park,” Season 1 2022 Gold HSMAI Adrian Award for Sonoma County Tourism’s Integrated Campaign 2022 Gold HSMAI Adrian Award for Presidio Tunnel Tops’ “Free to Be” Campaign Go Big. Go Less. TravelAlaska.com Find Your AKA TravelAlaska.com Aurora Borealis TravelAlaska.com Alaska is a world of seasons. And some seasons equal savings. As in, or as we like to say, “AKA—also known as,” big savings. AKA. “Also Known As.” Think of it as the definition to this vast land of contrast and wonder. Nature’s light show. Also known as the northern lights. And there are few places in world to see them better than Alaska. SITUATION OBJECTIVES STRATEGY EXECUTION RESULTS SITUATION OBJECTIVES STRATEGY EXECUTION RESULTS→ Execution “BREAK-UP” AND “GREEN-UP” HOW ALASKANS DESCRIBE WINTER TURNING INTO SPRING © State of Alaska/Michael DeYoung K A T M A I NATIONAL PARK HOME TO MORE BEARS THAN PEOPLE ALSO KNOWN AS ALUTIIQ_Central part of Southwest YUPIK_North part of Southwest HAIDA_Inside Passage ATHABASCAN_Mostly INTERIOR, it also includes Artic and parts of South Central QUPAK TravelAlaska.com 5Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Alaska Travel Industry Association Albuquerque Convention & Visitors Bureau Amelia Island Convention & Visitors Bureau Americans for the Arts Arizona Office of Tourism Arkansas Parks and Tourism Ascension Parish Tourism Commission Atlas Ocean Voyages Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau Be Native Tours Bermuda Tourism Authority Bangladesh Ecotourism and Conservation Alliance Birmingham Shopping District Boone & Watauga County TDA Boykin Management/Pink Shell Beach Resort & Marina Brand USA Branson/Lakes Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Brevard County Tourism Development Office/ Florida’s Space Coast Office of Tourism Cape May – Lewes Ferry Capital Region USA SERVICES & ACTIVITIES I CONFLICTS OF INTEREST » Conflicts of Interest Below is a list of tourism-related clients with whom we are currently doing business. Due to the individual team structure we use to perform this work, we do not see any potential conflicts of interest related to your scope of work. Current Clients Chattanooga Tourism Co. Chickasaw Country Choose Chicago Cincinnati USA Regional Tourism Network Citrus County Tourist Development Council City of Beaumont Colorado Tourism Office Compass Hotel by Margaritaville, Anna Maria Sound Compass Hotel by Margaritaville, Medford Dayton Convention & Visitors Bureau Delaware Department of Agriculture Delaware Division of Parks & Recreation Administration Delaware Division of Small Business Delaware Tourism Office Denton Convention & Visitors Bureau Destination Cleveland Destination DC Destination Madison Destinations International Our Roots in Sustainability At Miles, our mission is bigger than marketing. Our long-term commitment to the environment has been illustrated across a range of projects, investments and commitments over the past 15-plus years. These include: Visitor Education: Miles has been a pioneer in educating visitors on responsible travel behavior for more than a decade. We are a founding supporter and a board member of the Travel Care Code. Zero-Carbon Projects: Miles fully offsets the CO2 emissions of all our company’s office energy use, travel and events through a partnership with Cool Effect. Sustainable Paper Supplies: Miles has also worked over the last 15-plus years with sustainable paper supply programs for many of the 80-plus visitor guides we publish each year. Research Initiatives: Annually we sponsor the Stewardship & Sustainability Edition of “The State of the American Traveler,” which shares global best practices on sustainability, responsible travel and destination management. 6Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Discover Lancaster Dollywood Parks & Resorts Downstream Casino Resort Eastern Kentucky PRIDE, Inc. Experience Kissimmee Explore Asheville Explore Minnesota Tourism Fairfax County Convention & Visitors Corporation Fairmont El San Juan Hotel Floridays Woodfire Grill, Anna Maria Sound Galveston Island Convention & Visitors Bureau Georgia Department of Economic Development Georgia State Parks & Natural Resources Golden Isles Convention & Visitors Bureau Grand County Colorado Tourism Board Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau Hamilton and Waikato Tourism Hawai’i Tourism Authority Hawks Cay Resort Heritage Hotels Group and Heritage Collection South Pacific HHM Hotels - Independent Collection Hotels & Resorts The Hideout Golf Club & Resort Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa Kentucky Department of Tourism Kentucky Historical Society Kentucky State Parks Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau Los Cabos Tourism Louisiana Office of Tourism Lubbock Economic Development Alliance Madrid Turismo by IFEMA Maine Office of Tourism Margaritaville Hotels & Resorts (multiple properties) Marion County Visitor & Convention Bureau Maryland Office of Tourism Memphis Tourism Michigan Economic Development Corporation Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Naples Grande Beach Resort Naples, Marco Island and the Everglades Convention & Visitors Bureau Nebraska Tourism Commission New Jersey Division of Travel & Tourism New Orleans & Company North Dakota Department of Commerce & Tourism Division North Myrtle Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau Ocean Casino Resort Ocean Properties, The Querque Hotel Opal Collection Hotels & Resorts (multiple properties) Okaloosa Tourist Development Council Orange County Choppers Roadhouse Restaurant Pacific Asia Tourism Association Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development PGA Home Rentals Presidio Trust Reefhouse Resort & Marina Regional Tourism New Zealand Richmond Region Tourism San Diego Tourism Authority San Francisco Travel Association Saracen Casino Resort Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport Seagar’s Prime Steaks & Seafood Select Registry Serenity by the Sea Spa The Sherry-Netherland Sioux Falls Convention & Visitors Bureau Sirata Beach Resort Sonoma County Tourism Bureau South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism South Dakota Department of Tourism Springfield-Branson National Airport St. Joe Resorts St. Joe Clubs Ste. Michelle Wine Estates/Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Sweetwater County Joint Travel & Tourism Board Suburban Cook County Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Economic Initiative Tahiti Tourisme Tātaki Auckland Unlimited Texas Travel Industry Association THesis Hotel Miami Tourism Diversity Matters Tourism Fiji Travel South USA U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism Vail Local Marketing District Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau Visit Bucks County Visit Dallas Visit Detroit VISIT FLORIDA Visit Grand Junction Visit Greenville Visit Historic Bethlehem Visit Lake Charles Visit Longmont Visit Loudoun Visit Lubbock Visit Myrtle Beach Visit North Carolina Visit Philadelphia Visit Rogers Visit Santa Barbara Visit Sarasota County Visit Savannah Visit St. Pete/Clearwater Visit Tybee Island Visit West Hollywood Visit Winston-Salem Waco Convention & Visitors Bureau Wicomico Recreation Parks & Tourism Winter Park Fraser Chamber Wyoming Office of Tourism 7 SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo » Personnel/Management PERSONNEL/MANAGEMENT At Miles Partnership, we invest heavily in research, hire exceptionally talented associates, embrace creativity and carefully measure results. Every member of our team—whether a designer, developer, content director, data analyst, account executive or vice president—is a travel expert, and we take a custom, consultative approach to each client’s challenges. We’re excited to introduce your core account team at Miles, who will be supported by our broader network of 370 travel experts. On this page we provide brief bios for the core members of your Visit SLO team at Miles. Client Services Mina Robertson Vice President/Account Services Team Lead Mina has extensive experience with strategy development, execution and account management. She will be responsible for building and maintaining Miles’ relationship with Visit SLO, working with our team and yours to ensure we continually deliver innovative, quality products. Mina has been with Miles for more than eight years and has more than 22 years of related experience. She’s worked with travel brands such as Visit California, San Francisco Travel Association and Visit Philadelphia. Jackie Contaldo Account Director Jackie Contaldo has a 15+ year career in tourism marketing and is new to the Miles team. She has seamlessly navigated both ad agency and client-side environments, gaining extensive experience serving DMOs, CVBs, tourism offices, hotels, resorts and National Park accounts. Prior to joining Miles, Jackie spearheaded marketing and advertising efforts for Visit Arizona, VisitPhoenix, the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, Grand Canyon National Park, Zion National Park and Yellowstone National Park. Creative & Content Services Peter “PJ” Yesawich Jr. Senior Creative Director A creative agency veteran who was raised in travel, tourism and hospitality, PJ leads and oversees strategy, creative, brand and production. Since 2005, PJ has built his career on finding creative solutions that break conventional thinking and push boundaries within the industry. He is also a live-action film director. PJ has worked extensively with travel brands such as Hilton International, Marriott International, U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism and Baha Mar.Additional Client Services Support Debbie Johnson, Senior Vice President Randa Hovater, Account Supervisor 8 SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo PERSONNEL/MANAGEMENT Hannah Brown Content Strategist Hannah oversees content strategy for several state and city DMO websites, as well as publications and other travel resources. She manages our internal content- production team and handles requests from clients and third-party vendors and contractors related to content creation. During her nearly 16 years with Miles, Hannah has overseen the content strategy for countless leading destinations, including Colorado Tourism Office, Wyoming Office of Tourism, Washington Tourism Alliance, Seattle Convention & Visitors Bureau, San Francisco Travel, Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, Tourism Vancouver (Canada) and San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureau. Additional Creative & Content Support Jeff Wollman, Brand Strategist Taryn Parker, Senior Art Director Website Services Leisa Cashman Trujillo Digital Producer Leisa leads the implementation of creative, content, development, analytics and usability. She ensures that client goals are surpassed with state-of-the-art industry websites and leads evolution post-launch. She has worked with Miles for five years and has nearly 20 total years of digital marketing management experience, with credentials including Webmaster Certification and UI/ UX Design Certified Professional. Leisa has been a key part of major consumer- and industry-facing website development projects for Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, Colorado Tourism Office, Kentucky Department of Tourism, Delaware Tourism Office and Destinations International. Additional Website Services Support Justin Gibbs, Director of Analytics & Insights Justin Huot, Engineering Director- Digital Media Services Danelle Amos Vice President of Media Danelle works with our account teams to develop and manage paid-media campaigns, including display, traditional, social and SEM. She provides account strategy and recommendations for the most efficient media channels and campaign optimization guidance to enhance performance and ensure ROI. She also works with outside entities to create strategic partnerships that allow for larger discounts across the company and added-value packages for clients. Danelle has 12 years of media buying and planning experience–six of those at Miles. She manages a 17-person team of media planners, ad operations and media coordinators, and has planned and managed media for accounts such as VISIT FLORIDA, Alaska Travel Industry Association, Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa, Visit Grand Junction and Experience Kissimmee. Additional Media Services Support Kayla Coe , Associate Media Director Jaime Kreikemeier, Ad Operations Director Subcontractors Miles Partnership is a full-service agency and can provide all services in your scope of work using in-house talent. However, we’re not too proud to partner with other best-in-class agencies, public relations companies, technology providers and local content creators and would be happy to explore other relationships that might benefit Visit SLO. As requested in your RFP, we are also confirming that there are no instances in which Miles or any of our subcontractors have been removed from a project or disqualified from bidding on a project. 9Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo » Scope of Work Acknowledgment Thank you for the opportunity to present our experience and qualifications for being the agency of record for Visit SLO. While we’re trying to pack a lot of information into a limited number of pages, we wanted to take some space to clearly state our excitement to “Live the SLO Life” with you. You have a strong, successful brand platform and we don’t want to change that. We do, however, want to share some thought-starters for continuing to build and evolve your brand story in ways that will resonate with today’s travelers and expand your audience reach. These include: » Putting a greater focus on experiences » Identifying and amplifying local events » Extending your brand through partnerships Given the required brevity of our response, we’ll just briefly dive into each, but look forward to discussing these with you in more detail. 10Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Focus on Experiences The experience economy is booming. Arival, an industry research leader in activities, reports that U.S. travelers–and specifically younger and more affluent travelers—are significantly prioritizing spending on experiences over things. These travelers are also looking for engaging experiences first, frequently booking them before any other component of travel and, increasingly, allowing the experience offerings to dictate their destination decision. Wellness-related experiences in particular are seeing significant growth in popularity–likely in a direct correlation to stress and burnout, which are on the rise. In the U.S. alone, the wellness sector is estimated to be worth more than $230 billion. According to a recent State of the American Traveler report, 31% of U.S. travelers are highly interested in wellness-related experiences and 59% are highly open to travel inspiration, which makes them an ideal target audience for using wellness as a gateway experience to their destination selection. And we’re not just talking about spas and massages. The concept of wellness has undergone a significant expansion; today's definition encompasses not just physical relaxation but also mental, emotional, social and spiritual well-being. We see a great opportunity for Visit SLO to take advantage of this trend by identifying and promoting your existing wellness assets, as well as developing new wellness-themed itineraries and content along with special packages featuring your industry partners. We’d recommend Visit SLO target specific wellness segments, such as active wellness and culinary wellness, and deploy niche campaigns through a targeted media strategy. Amplify Local Events The second trend in the area of experiences is the boom of live events. Taylor Swift may be the most famous for bringing in fans to her concert cities, but more than half of U.S. leisure travelers have traveled to attend an event in the last two years. 11Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Fans increasingly see the opportunity to explore a new city as a complement to their attendance at a concert, sporting event or festival. Beyond the “big” events, smaller signature local events offer a unique opportunity to create awareness, promote off-season visitation and increase visitor spending. This creates an opportunity for Visit SLO to integrate your own signature events more prominently into your marketing—especially given your strong drive market. One idea would be to create a hyper- local niche campaign that highlights signature and quirky events and targets your audiences within a two-hour drive. In partnership with your community and stakeholders, consider developing a short roster of signature events that reflect San Luis Obispo’s culture and personality. Tied to this, you could develop pre- and post-event packages, unique experiences and special offers to generate more interest among potential travelers and additional revenue for your industry partners. Additionally, ensure Visit SLO is the source of in-depth and accurate information about local events across all of your channels. Use Partnerships to Extend Your Reach As we’ll discuss more in our approach to marketing, content development and creative services, we believe in the importance of reaching your target audiences wherever they are–and one smart way to do that is through partnerships with other brands. Your current marketing plan outlines the destination partners you plan to tap into to extend Visit SLO’s marketing reach—including Visit California, Central Coast Tourism Council, Visit SLO CAL and local SLO lodging and tourism businesses—and with Miles’ existing relationships with these partners, we’re ready to help you find beneficial new ways to do just that. We believe strategic partnerships are key to extending your destination’s reach and value with like-minded brands, businesses and individuals. In addition to your destination partners, we can also help you identify other endemic and non-endemic brands that have a similar audience and comparable brand values to those of Visit SLO—which will help you build relationships with new and existing consumers, extend your reach and provide your key consumers with even more value. Our team is experienced at fostering these types of partnerships, and we have developed successful relationships between our clients and several major brands, such as Lilly Pulitzer, Life is Good, Sports Illustrated and Outside TV. We see a great opportunity for Visit SLO to take advantage of this approach and are committed to bringing national brand partners to our work with you, as well as activating local partners and exploring annual special events. We know the best work will come through close collaboration with you, but we hope these initial ideas showcase our ability and enthusiasm for amplifying your destination and the Visit SLO brand in future-focused ways. On the pages that follow, we outline our approach to fulfilling the key elements of your scope of work. SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 12Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo » Onboarding Every successful agency-partner relationship is built on a strong foundation and Miles is committed to laying the important groundwork for long-term success right out of the gate. This means getting both of our teams around the table–along with your key stakeholders and any other agencies you work with–to ensure everyone is up to speed and on the same page before we dive into any new work for you. Our typical onboarding process is a two-fold parallel track focused on strategy and process. SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Strategy Onboarding Steps • Brand debrief• Stakeholders overview• Strategic vision• Short- and long-term goals definition• Assets review• Destination familiarization Process Onboarding Steps • Identify vertical and direct contact leads• Set communication protocol/identify tools• Clarify approval process• Determine invoicing and payment process • Identify business rules We are already familiar with Visit SLO as a destination and are ready to hit the ground running. Our partner agency, Coraggio Group, has already conducted surveys, focus groups, investor interviews, strategic planning sessions and more to learn the ins and outs of the San Luis Obispo tourism industry and help you define your overall strategic direction. Miles has been an agency partner for Visit SLO CAL in the past and has done considerable work with the Central Coast through Visit California and Brand USA, giving us first-hand insights into your broader area. We are also a member of the California Travel Association; Mina Robertson (who would serve as the Account Services Team Lead for Visit SLO and resides just outside of Sacramento) currently sits on that board, which is chaired by Visit SLO CAL President & CEO Chuck Davison. As part of our onboarding, we will tap into Coraggio Group's now-intrinsic knowledge of your tourism industry and combine it with the Miles team’s destination-marketing expertise to deliver custom strategies for Visit SLO that will further support your mission, enhance your position within the community, fulfill your strategic imperatives and, of course, drive visitation and economic impact to the destination. » Brand Management We believe a successful brand platform for our destination clients is more than just a colorful logo and clever tagline; it’s a promise—to consumers and your community. A strong brand story does more than build awareness. It generates affinity that can attract businesses and talent, thus helping to create a thriving community. Central to the invaluable power of a destination’s brand is its ability to demonstrate an area’s rich sense of place. And Miles is rooted in the placemaking space. 13Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Having worked with numerous community brands over the years, we’re experienced at uncovering the key characteristics that make a place truly unique from anywhere else in the world. Once those attributes are defined, we leverage them to form the basis of a brand. This brand, and its promise, then act as a north star to guide any and all key decisions moving forward. We understand that every interaction your audiences will have with the Visit SLO brand is a unique opportunity not just to inform them with content and messaging relevant to their needs, but to excite them with the destination’s energy, vibrancy and unique selling proposition. Every interaction is a chance to create an emotional connection with your brand—a connection we hope to convert into long-lasting relationships. Visit SLO already has a strong brand platform with a well-defined position, promise, purpose and personality, and we’re excited for the opportunity to build on your existing brand equity by identifying new and exciting ways to extend your reach through SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT new partnerships, targeted media strategies, and updated messaging and creative. Our approach to stewarding the Visit SLO brand will focus on evolution from the outside in: using insight and point-of-view from your core audiences and focusing on “why” people should be interested in visiting, living and investing in your destination, which goes beyond general incentives and environment and into the unique selling proposition of San Luis Obispo itself. Your team and key stakeholders will be involved every step of the way to ensure any new brand activations or campaigns we develop on your behalf truly reflect the unique character of your destination. We believe that by grounding our marketing efforts in shared values—appealing to what is personal and important to people in their daily lives—we will create an emotional connection between the Visit SLO brand and the audiences with whom you want to connect. 14Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo » Marketing Strategy We will work with San Luis Obispo to develop a high-level integrated marketing strategy that builds on the brand equity created by previous campaigns, while considering fresh approaches as today’s consumer and media landscapes continue to change. Our approach to analyzing and understanding your opportunities is based on our holistic, four-part Destination 360 model, which allows us to look at opportunities for the destination in a 360-degree view of travel and tourism and its outcomes, both positive and negative. SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT GROW OPTIMIZEIMPACTBALANCEDESTINATION 360 MODEL We will achieve this by looking at opportunities for San Luis Obispo in four ways: GROW: Finding opportunities for growing existing audience segments (travelers, locals, etc.) with a focus on right-fit targeting and messaging IMPACT: Maximizing the return per audience segment, through both economic impact and brand sentiment OPTIMIZE: Continually reviewing and improving the effectiveness of marketing programs from both brand alignment and ROI perspectives BALANCE: Driving outcomes that enhance a healthy, supportive community and environment Our goal is to ensure there is equal focus on attracting specific high-value, quality leisure audiences and creating a united, thriving local community. What differentiates Miles is that we believe the key to achieving this is by grounding our strategy in research; tapping directly into the knowledge and experiences of your team, travelers and locals; and ensuring each of your agency partners is aligned with the same goal. Our marketing strategy would be closely tied to and developed in support of your strategic plan. We understand that establishing a smart marketing strategy is only half the battle in today’s partisan landscape. Funding challenges, politics and resident sentiment are forcing DMOs to re-establish their value proposition to their 15Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo impact if the messaging, media tactics and channel distribution are targeted to your key audiences and closely tied to the travel lifecycle: Awareness, Consideration and Activation. entire communities, going beyond marketing and economic impact to shared community values and evolving into destination management and marketing organizations. Miles has proven experience in doing exactly this. We know that Visit SLO already values the importance of the community and the factors that make it a great place to visit, meet, live, work and play. As your partner, we will work with you to continue to develop Visit SLO’s role as a destination management organization, with an increased focus on areas such as destination sustainability; diversity, equity and inclusion; and community education and understanding. Our goal is to ensure there is equal focus on attracting specific leisure and business audiences and creating a united, thriving local community. Together, we will create a dynamic marketing strategy that helps achieve your strategic imperatives of elevating the SLO brand and experience, delivering smart growth, building meaningful partnerships, ensuring organizational excellence, fostering destination resilience and, ultimately, putting more hearts in beds.» Content Development Creating, curating and distributing compelling content that inspires travel has been part of who we are—and what we offer destinations—for more than 60 years. Our vision for moving your content strategy forward now and into the future centers on a holistic approach across all of your channels. Much like our approach to media, we believe that a destination’s content-marketing program will have the most SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Awareness Content Consideration Content Activation Content Rich Media Photography Interactive Content Social Media Content Itineraries In-depth Articles Interactive Maps Special Offers & Packages Clear Calls to Action Rich Listings Live Chat Support A strategic approach to content is a crucial component of any destination-marketing plan. It is an integral part of promoting a destination’s brand, optimizing the organization’s existing assets and looking ahead to create engaging new content. It is not a standalone effort, but one that should be combined with ongoing research and analytics reviews, collaboration with internal departments and outside vendors, and user testing. It focuses on leveraging those resources with your own marketing objectives and brand positioning to better define, develop and distribute compelling content. Finally, it positions all of your marketing efforts to align with a singular vision: to drive engagement, reach untapped potential visitors and, in turn, drive more travelers to your destination. 16Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo marketing program. We believe content plays an integral role in all of your owned channels, because within any channel your target audiences are consuming information and you have the opportunity to have an impact on them. Today’s consumers continue to use more sources of information to select destinations and plan travel. But rather than viewing these other channels as competition, we believe DMOs need to see them as opportunities. For example, we would recommend moving away from a focus on “website content strategy” to a more holistic “digital content-distribution strategy.” To do so, we would create complete content-distribution plans that go beyond your website and owned channels prior to embarking on any new content or multimedia-asset creation. We’d also continually identify and leverage platforms like Apple Maps Guides, Google Stories, Google maps and TripScout to reach new audiences with your branded content. Rather than thinking of your advertising campaign or website or printed visitor guide as standalone pieces, we see them as integral parts of your larger destination presence and content ecosystem. In support of our approach, we have an established in-house content studio that can produce custom content and campaign creative for every type of media, from exciting in-market activations to print and digital advertising, social media stories and video production. Our content studio also has broader expertise in branded-content strategy, story development, distribution and amplification. Last year alone, we produced more than 500 videos and conducted two dozen photo shoots to bring our clients’ brands to life in impactful ways. Our overarching strategy will be to ensure the content we create on your behalf falls into three key content types: Awareness Content (also called “hero” content) that is inspiring, rich in visuals, immersive in experiences and focused on your brand. This could be brand-driven content that supports new ad campaigns, landing-page content for your website, a themed video series and such. Consideration Content that focuses on educating travelers on what to see and do in San Luis Obispo, essentially helping turn awareness and inspiration into action. Thematic content, itineraries, social media and influencer campaigns all help move potential travelers from becoming inspired and dreaming to actively planning their trip. Activation Content that focuses on driving conversions by assisting travelers who are actively booking and planning their trips. This type of content also plays an especially important role in reinforcing that San Luis Obispo is welcoming, accessible and easy to navigate. We would then focus on distributing all three types of content to your target audiences and markets. By telling authentic and engaging stories—whether in words, photos or videos—distributing them wisely and encouraging sharing, your content will become an extension of your brand promise. In your RFP, you specifically asked what role we see content playing on owned channels like your website and email SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 17Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo When it comes to campaign-creative development for San Luis Obispo, our principal objectives will be to: • Identify what brand pillars/experiences best communicate the Visit SLO brand message for each target audience, and then explore the best approach to execute creative-asset development • Conduct research on the developed creative campaigns to ensure they emotionally connect with consumers and align with Visit SLO’s brand positioning, and then iterate as needed • Ensure the paid-media strategy aligns with both your brand attributes and target audiences • Armed with a well-planned, consumer-driven strategy, produce the creative for final deployment, including creative copywriting, script and storyboard development, building ads, out-of-home activations, public relations and whatever else is required to deliver a memorable campaign for San Luis Obispo We optimize our creative to ensure imagery and messaging are on brand and tailored to specific audiences and interests. The final piece of our campaign-development process is developing a strong analytical framework, which both establishes a benchmark for the current period and measures the impact of our newer advertising initiatives. To ensure that Visit SLO’s marketing strategies connect with key audiences and increase travel to (and spending in) the destination, we will work with your team to set up clear goals and KPIs that measure performance so we can continue to track conversions and ensure ongoing evolution of our campaigns. » Creative Services We take a holistic approach to campaign development, starting by asking three questions to identify a campaign strategy: 1. WHO do we want to reach? 2. WHAT do we want them to feel or do? 3. HOW are we going to get them to do this? To fully show and tell Visit SLO’s brand story in a way that resonates with your target audiences, we will focus on ensuring the right content and creative reach your audiences at the right place, on the right device and at the right time, providing a flawless user experience across all platforms. Our process starts with a collaborative effort on building creative and media briefs outlining messaging and targeted marketing tactics to inspire and attract high-value travelers while promoting responsible visitation. These briefs connect Visit SLO’s desires to an action-plan framework that guides all of our efforts, from developing the campaign strategy and creative assets to media planning and ROI analysis. We would create such a brief for each of your primary campaigns, as well as any additional niche campaigns. We will work together with Visit SLO to develop creative campaigns that reflect your brand and connect with your key personas. This includes creating a master visual design with specs that will establish the look and feel of your creative executions and provide the overarching direction for the development of future resources, whether it be for television, radio, digital advertising (video, audio, display), social media or other outlets. SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 18Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Our experience and research show that San Luis Obispo’s brand advertising will have the most impact if the marketing tactics, messaging and media buys are closely tied to the travel lifecycle— Awareness, Consideration, Activation—and customized to reach your target audiences. An example of how we plan media around the travel lifecycle is dedicating dollars to inspirational mediums such as connected TV and online video to capture a potential visitor in the awareness stage. (You can imagine how an immersive, rich video experience can provide the ideal platform for sharing your destination’s stories in a visually impactful way.) As we move into the consideration and purchase stages, we’ll continue the conversation with our prospect by using lower-funnel tactics. » Paid Media Planning Miles’ track record of creating innovative, omnichannel campaigns in the travel vertical is unmatched. Today we manage more than $185 million in media on behalf of our clients. This buying power gives us premium access to multiple DSPs, allowing us to connect our clients’ messages to the right person at the right time across more than 2,000 different publisher-direct private marketplaces. We also hold premier status with all the leading travel publishers and digital vendors, which gives us exclusive access to all beta launches with these media vendors, which we always pass on to our clients. SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Awareness Brand Reach TACTICS Video & Audio Digital Out-of-home Social & Native Display Social E-Newsletters Display Social Travel Publishers Reach Video Completion Viewability Pageviews Engagement Open Rate Bookings Conversions Arrivals ARRIVALS KPIs Consideration Focused Media Activation Targeted Media 19Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Media Planning Tools & Market Intelligence Resources We have an array of media planning tools at our disposal and we are experienced with all industry-standard measurement platforms, all of which are included as part of our proposal at no additional cost. After the visitor moves out of these primary stages, then social, word-of-mouth and co-operative media play an important role. This allows your industry partners to engage a visitor planning a trip with the ability to take action and book. Each of our recommended media tactics is designed to help move our target audiences along the customer journey with key actions that align with their needs. The channels we use in each of these stages will of course change as technology and consumer behaviors change. We keep a close eye on these trends and will adapt our approach and channels accordingly, optimizing on a deeper level by layering in KPIs and conversions in all campaigns. We’ll also focus on understanding how to reach audiences from a contextual standpoint, providing relevant content and messaging that match the interests of these groups. To do so, we conduct passion-points mapping of the entire character of your target audiences, focusing on what they are passionate about and how their values align with the values of your destination. Passion points are different from any other audience research metric, as they allow your brand to connect with your target audiences on a deeper, more meaningful level. (An approach we believe tightly aligns with Visit SLO’s brand purpose and brand principles.) This holistic approach will allow us to reach a more well-rounded, travel-ready audience who will stay longer and spend more. It will also give us the data we need to increase and improve off-season and shoulder-season travel, and to specifically create strategies focused on dispersal beyond the gateways and national parks. Over time, we will learn more about and continue to refine these target audiences, as well as identify patterns and primary interests against which we can further optimize our campaigns. Media Research Tools • GfK MRI • eMarketer • Phocuswright • Alexa Marketing Stack Media Placement Tools • Strata • Basis Technologies • Amazon DSP • Integral Ad Science • Google Campaign Manager 360 Media Reporting Platforms • Google Analytics • Google Looker Studio • Chartio • Panoply • Symphony In addition to the tools that we license ourselves, we use tools and data available to us under our client agreements with partners such as: • Adara Impact • Arrivalist • Zartico • STR SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 20Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Attribution Suite: evaluation of the full path to conversion, tracking the influence of all (taggable) media and providing a holistic view of the role media tactics play, with a comprehensive analysis of objective achievement and campaign success Travel Seller Production Reporting: indicates any shift in market share or impact on travel booked Campaign optimization happens throughout our process, not just as an add-on at the end. Through daily analysis of performance through Google’s Campaign Manager 360, we can assess which channels are having the greatest impact on our KPIs and will adjust budget, targeting and creative accordingly, continually optimizing each campaign for optimal results. As media launches, we’ll provide you with proof of performance that everything ran as expected, fulfilling the requirements of the contract. Any campaigns not performing will be canceled with no publisher penalty or cancellation fees, as long as media is rebooked with another publisher. All changes to the plans will be tracked and communicated to show you how we are shifting dollars to maximize performance. Miles is also a Premier Google Partner, which means your dedicated media team is Google-certified and meets best practices for management across all Google Ads accounts. Your team is also fluent in all major self-managed buying platforms such as Facebook, Bing and the major DSPs. Measurement & Reporting During the strategy phase, when we determine overall objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs), we will also go through the process of outlining your preferred reporting structure requirements. We have the capability to customize reporting based on the metrics and frequency of your reporting needs. We will map the strategies within the traveler purchase cycle to specific KPIs to be able to optimize across each tactic. We will then review each of the tactical results and use additional key reporting mechanisms to evaluate success of the campaign, including: Media Performance: reach, views, completed views, article time spent/scroll depth, post impression/post view engagement, clicks, customer acquisition, campaign pacing and cost efficiency metrics (CPA, CPC, CPV, CPCV, CPE, etc.) Google Analytics: year-over-year comparisons, audience profiling, campaign contribution to traffic/engagement, conversions, and goals analyses SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT SAMPLE REPORT 21Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo engines, and that the search engine isn't spending too many resources crawling unnecessary pages. However, new site features can change things, so we will recheck things once new updates are made to your site. Load times or, more specifically, Core Web Vitals, are something that we’ll also closely monitor and actively address as updates to website content can heavily impact these. In addition to smart technology choices, an equally smart content strategy is needed to round out a holistic approach to SEO. Our in-house development and optimization team works hand-in-hand with our content team to create new content and optimize existing content. The creation of new content is a necessary part of any destination’s content-marketing program. But when it comes to organic search traffic, it can often be more beneficial to build on the success of what already exists. We recommend a holistic approach to optimization: Make SEO updates using the latest indicators of success from Google’s core updates and then use SEM, email, social and on-site promotion to drive users to that content. We’ll use the tools mentioned above, plus Google Search Console and Google Analytics (UA & GA4), to track data and report on performance. We’ll then integrate data from each of these tools into a reporting tool like Google Looker Studio. This not only makes it easy for your team to access your data, but also allows us to extract more insights than we'd be able to do by looking at each tool and data set on its own. We can customize these reports for you as needed and will allow your team and ours to have access to SEO performance at any time. » Organic Search Successful content strategy in destination marketing is an art, a science and a little bit of engineering. The art is in developing inspirational content while offering tactical advice to your target audience. The science involves constructing hypotheses based on historical performance and trends, setting up experiments, deriving insights and improving performance. Engineering takes everything we already know about search engines and constructs websites that fit that paradigm. SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT To inform our ongoing recommendations for your site, we will conduct an extensive discovery and research process. During this stage, we will use a variety of platforms to benchmark and monitor both your presence, and that of your competition, in organic search. For example, we’ll utilize tools such as BrightEdge, SEMRush and Ahrefs to gather information on overall presence and specific details around the types of content that your site ranks for. We’ll also assess your site’s “technical SEO,” such as crawl budget, crawlability/ indexability and load times. Our main goal with the first two areas of focus is to ensure all content on your site can be accessed by search 22Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo analytics and staff/stakeholder interviews—and then sit down with your team and your other agency partners to rank the goals for the website. This exercise allows us to collaboratively develop a measurement framework that everyone can reference back to when making design and functionality decisions throughout the evolution process. The core principle of our approach is evolution— content evolution, platform adaptation and constant optimization. We understand the intertwining roles of content and conversion paths to successfully lead users from inspiration to planning to booking. Our team will review and recommend new content for the site while ensuring your existing content remains highly visible to relevant search engines. We also recommend looking at paid and organic search strategies in tandem to ensure the highest degree of success. Finally, when it comes to ongoing technical support and maintenance, we know that a quick response is key. Because of this, we have a dedicated Response Team that provides our clients with fast, flexible service, allowing an easy way to handle small challenges and keep sites fresh and updated. Requests for site maintenance are sent directly to Response@MilesPartnership. com, and within a few business hours, the team will either have the task completed or will provide an estimate for completion. » Website Development Miles has been building and supporting large, complex destination websites for more than 20 years. We prefer to develop first-in-class websites using open-source content management systems (CMS) due to flexibility, scalability and developer community support. Our development team has extensive experience working with CMS platforms such as WordPress, Drupal and Atlantis. What differentiates Miles is our unmatched range of experience within the travel and tourism industry and our team’s ability to deliver custom, innovative and impactful digital solutions for clients. Our digital expertise includes providing strategy, UX/UI, development, optimization and maintenance services. Our strength is in applying a research-based understanding of audience needs to create visually engaging, content-rich and highly functional websites for DMOs. We believe that it is our custom approach to each client’s goals—as well as our focus on innovative technology, careful analysis and evolution—that has created significant ROI for the destinations we work with. Whether for a new build or an evolution strategy, we generally break any project into three phases, with each phase yielding core deliverables and milestones. We believe the first phase, the Discovery & Plan Phase, is the most important step to the long- term success of a website project. If we don’t have alignment and clarity on what success looks like from the start, features and functionality can’t be designed and prioritized in a way that creates desired results. That’s why we take the time to understand what’s working and not working on the current site—using both SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 23Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo data from complex implementations of analytics–from the latest in tracking pixels to online control groups and visitation data solutions, such as geolocation data. We complement this research-driven approach with the latest consumer media planning tools (e.g., MRI) to paint a picture of who these travelers are to better understand their use of precise media channels, their journey throughout the day, and how and where they consume media. When it comes to reporting back results to you and your board, we have customized fluid, multifaceted reporting metrics to dissect and attribute user behavior as it evolves through the path to conversion. This multi-point attribution model informs the “big picture” goal of arrivals while taking into consideration how each touchpoint preceding an arrival contributed to that conversion— whether it was through an engaged audience on the website, a piece of content, or through instigating bookings and searches to the destination. We aggregate data across partners and platforms for a thorough report on each campaign, with visual-forward elements and supporting takeaways called out per partner for easy-to-understand and easy-to-share actionable insights. Using a solution like Looker Studio, we can craft a reporting platform that encompasses broad campaign insights as well as data related to individual brand and co-op campaigns. This platform also offers customization options, making it easy for your team to dissect and share data through visual-forward dashboards. » Research & Analytics We take a research-based and results-driven approach to planning and executing destination- marketing strategies. We invest heavily in research from leading, specialized research partners and work with them to develop and refine leading-edge qualitative and quantitative solutions. Our qualitative research options include a range of solutions to develop, test and refine both creative and campaigns including virtual interviews, online creative testing, and in-person focus groups and ideation exercises. Likewise, we commission resident sentiment surveys to understand how the wider community’s goals can be incorporated into the destination’s brand strategy not as an afterthought, but from the start. This qualitative research is matched with quantitative surveys and consumer data to deeply understand target markets—their defining behaviors, motivations and interests. This collection of information and feedback is used to precisely segment current and potential travelers and to develop personas. We then measure the reach, impact and ROI of marketing and advertising campaigns through a range of quantitative research solutions, including advertising awareness and effectiveness studies, and campaign, website and visitor guide user and conversion studies. Each of these traditional research solutions is also tightly integrated with data and analytics from the advertising and campaign platforms—both in the media planning and campaign measurement phases. This includes leveraging the full range of SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 24 We use research to better understand what motivates and influences travelers. Recent sponsored research that helps inform the marketing strategies we develop with our clients includes: SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT » Travel & Administration Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo We take the “Partnership” part of our name seriously and will meet with you, your stakeholders and your industry whenever you need us–no questions asked. If we’re fortunate enough to earn your business, we hope it becomes immediately clear that Miles’ primary focus is always on high-quality work and top-notch customer service, acting as an extension of your team and providing high-value work that stretches your marketing dollars. We are also mindful to provide added value whenever we can by keeping your team abreast of industry trends, benchmarking and emerging technologies. Our project-management strategy is based on open communication and a commitment to keeping you informed during every step of the process, providing client-friendly schedules that detail not just when input is needed on various steps, but why the input is critical to a successful and timely product launch. “USA Road Trips Research Summary,” Longwoods International, 1997–2024. This comprehensive study looks into the travel behavior and sources of information for U.S. road-trip travelers. “American Traveler Sentiment Study,” Longwoods International, 2020–2024. Weekly research showing current traveler sentiment through several data points. “The State of the American Traveler,” Future Partners, 2007–2024. Quarterly in-depth look at American leisure travelers with special reports on Destination Decisions, Technology & Mobile, Traveler Segments and Destination Management. “The Multicultural Multiplier: Cultural Diversity’s Impact on Travel Intent,” iolite group, 2022. Targeting leisure travelers from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K. and China, this study explores the impact that cultural diversity has on traveler intentions. “The Year in Review & the Year Ahead—Major Trends, Challenges & Opportunities in Destination & Tourism Marketing,” Phocuswright, 2016–2024. This study explores insights, analyses and predictions of how the industry is changing. 25Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Our service commitment will be tailored to your specific needs, but typically includes: • Ongoing weekly client status meetings, inclusive of reporting and updates • In-person team meetings as needed to strategize goals, new ideas and long-term objectives • Daily/weekly project-specific meetings, as needed • Detailed monthly and/or quarterly reports on all programs and services In addition to our internal process workflow tools, we also subscribe to the following online, cloud-based, project- management services: • Dropbox allows for centralized file and asset sharing • Basecamp allows for centralized communication between agency and client teams, creating production efficiencies • Wrike is our online project management system and time- tracking software that gives full visibility and control over tasks, while also providing a dynamic platform for ongoing communication and collaboration However, we are always open and flexible in using whatever project-management system works best for you. As you know, some projects may take only minutes to execute and complete, while other projects may take weeks or months, depending on the complexity. SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Large or small, there will always be open communication between our team and yours from the project’s start to its finish. There are regular project updates given throughout the process, so everyone understands what phase the project is in at all times. This structure not only provides an opportunity to share valuable information and establishes necessary guidelines for success, but it also allows for adaptation and adjustment along the way. Your Miles team has a tremendous wealth of destination marketing experience and insights, so we’re ready to hit the ground running. » Innovation Case Study At Miles, we never stop learning. Staying agile and flexible enough to foresee future needs is a hallmark of our corporate culture, and we constantly seek new ways to innovate together with our clients to elevate their brands. On the next page is one case study that further showcases how we’ve helped push our clients beyond traditional marketing efforts in exciting new ways—and generated impressive results. 26Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo In 2021, Miles worked with the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism (USVI) on the development of a distinctive new “Naturally In Rhythm” brand that is based on the core belief that what distinguishes the USVI from its competitive set is its people, culture and under-7-flags history, combined with its hassle-free, no-passport-needed, double-the-duty-free-limit, American-soil identity. “Naturally In Rhythm” Brand Strategy: U.S. Virgin Islands “Naturally In Rhythm” is a distinctive, bold new brand positioning that is ownable and memorable for the USVI—and focused on cultural travel rather than tourism, and the types of travelers that approach attracts. This new positioning is supported by the latest research into experiences driving destination selection: Today’s travelers are looking for distinctive experiences. Who better to give them that than the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism? Play Brand Anthem 27Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo “Naturally In Rhythm” Brand Strategy: U.S. Virgin Islands When it came time to launch the USVI’s new vibrant, larger-than-life brand, ordinary wasn’t an option. With that in mind, we took the same experience-first approach to our media strategy, promoting the new brand campaign across owned, earned and paid partner channels— but with a twist. We added major out-of-home media activations and sponsorships with the goal of touting the USVI as a nonendemic leader and creating synergies with direct flight markets. Some of our sponsorships included: Bon Appétit Test Kitchen (New York City, NY) We held a live cooking demonstration with a local chef (and “Chopped” champion) in the official Bon Appétit test kitchen at Condé Nast headquarters in New York City. USVI’s Chef John delivered a menu featuring delicious Caribbean dishes and drinks. Editors from Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Essence and the New York Post were all in attendance as the USVI team explained the origins of the new “Naturally in Rhythm” branding while giving these tastemakers a true taste of the islands. Our goal was to not only tease amazing local cuisine from the territories, but to inspire the editors to write, visit and promote the destination organically in their publications. Across Condé Nast’s publications, the campaign garnered: »More than 15 million impressions »More than 65,000 total campaign clicks »More than 49,000 page views 28Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Made in America Festival (Philadelphia, PA) Jay-Z’s Made in America Festival features a lineup of both established and up-and-coming musicians and artists from various genres. USVI’s sponsorship included a major “Naturally in Rhythm” branded booth and activation space that featured Mocko Jumbies, who towered over and danced with guests, a tire swing over a backdrop of the ocean for fun, Instagrammable moments and a facade of a USVI cityscape that made guests feel like they were immersed in the territories. Guests were able to scan a QR code that allowed them to enter to win a trip to the USVI, pick up swag and share their experiences on social media. Public relations results included: »26 articles and more than 48 million impressions »5,100 consumer giveaway opt-ins »More than 72,225 social impressions on USVI-owned channels “Naturally In Rhythm” Brand Strategy: U.S. Virgin Islands Fenway Park (Boston, MA) We partnered with Boston’s Fenway Park stadium to sponsor the Wasabi college football bowl game at the iconic Fenway Park. The goal of this sponsorship was to promote direct- flight opportunities from Boston into USVI, promote the beautiful weather of the USVI during a very cold, snowy, Boston landscape and, finally, to position the USVI as a leader in the sports marketing space. USVI’s “Naturally in Rhythm” brand was front and center with dedicated signage and a branded spot during commercial breaks on ESPN. The sponsorship also included a Fan Fest event at the House of Blues, where USVI ambassadors handed out branded swag and promoted the new brand to groups of VIPs. Radio spots about USVI also aired on terrestrial radio stations coast-to-coast. The event garnered the following impressive performance stats: »5:12 minutes of commercial airtime »$218,902 media equivalency In our short time together, USVI and Miles have achieved incredible things: We put the U.S. Virgin Islands on the world’s stage, and that has resulted in the USVI becoming the number one Caribbean destination for overseas arrivals in 2022. Outcomes from our collective “Naturally in Rhythm” multichannel campaign strategy also contributed to a 15% increase in visitor arrivals from the U.S. and a 10.4% increase in accommodation bookings—valued at $413.5 million. 29Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT» Work Program We believe our best work will be done in collaboration with Visit SLO, so we can craft programs and schedules that deliver on your specific needs. We’ve included the preliminary timeline requested for implementing all services outlined in your RFP, but please note we consider this only a starting point in the discussion. A more detailed schedule would be provided during our onboarding with your team and partners. July-August 2024 • Discovery Meetings• Transition: Creative, Media, Website • Brand Evaluation • Determine Stakeholder Interviews • Review of Existing Research • Review of Creative Assets • Development of Creative Brief • Development of Media Brief September-October 2024 • Brand Strategy/Updated Brand Guidelines • Strategic Marketing Planning• SEO Findings and Implementation• Media Planning/Strategy • Website Project Brief: Annual Development & Maintenance Plan November-December 2024 • Creative Concepts• Pre-Production of Assets • Website Development January-February 2025 • Pre-Production Process Starts• Website Enhancements March-June 2025 • Advertising Campaign Development• Assets & Collateral Completed• Reporting (ongoing) » Budget Miles Partnership works exclusively in the travel industry and understands the importance of making a destination’s marketing budget go as far as possible. We do this by leveraging efficiencies across the account– and company–through streamlined account service, volume-based buying power and consistent industry engagement. Specifically, we believe that in today’s competitive marketing landscape, we need every dollar possible to be applied to media (marketing and not management) so we design our approach to ensure your media dollars go farther. Finally, we look at things differently than other agencies. We routinely find opportunities to reduce costs while not sacrificing the quality of our products or the results of our programs. Therefore, as you analyze our proposed costs, know that we have a proven track record of delivering similar scopes of work for destinations at or below the costs detailed here. These costs are outlined for Year One, and we anticipate the monthly service costs to be equal or less in Year Two due to efficiencies gained in the transition process. We look forward to discussing the final scope and working within your budget and goals. Miles bills our team’s services within this proposal at a blended hourly rate of $150. 30Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SCOPE OF WORK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Fee-for-Service Monthly Retainer Model (FFS) • Brand Strategy and Management • Account Strategy and Management • Creative Services • Paid Media and SEO Management • Paid Media Buy • Website Maintenance and Services • Content Development • Reporting We believe the budget will allow for us to utilize existing assets and systematically curate new high quality creative for use in your media campaign. We do things differently than other ad agencies: We’ve found success working with strategic media partners as part of the media plan, such as National Geographic and Expedia, to help supplement the creative needs for a new destination campaign launch. We also have our own in-house content studio, so a bulk of asset needs can be managed in house, which is more efficient than using outside production companies. We hope that the information presented in this proposal demonstrates our hyper focus on providing high-touch client services, strategically focused personalized audience targeting and constant optimization through data-driven decisions. We view this proposal as the start of a conversation and are flexible with how to structure a mutually beneficial business agreement with your best interests in mind. Fee-for-Service Costs: Annual Breakdown • Year One Transition Fee: $25,000 • Year One Agency Fee: $550,000 • Paid Media Buy: $575,000 See our Proposal Submittal Form for an estimated budget breakdown. We can work together to adjust the budgets in the services based on what we learn in our immersion and discovery conversation with you. Additional services would be offered at an hourly blended rate of $150/hour, plus any licensing or hard costs–all of which would be presented and approved in advance of any work taking place. Year One Transition Fee We believe having a one-time transition budget is essential to executing a smooth set-up for us to ensure our team is fully up-to-speed on all of your organization’s goals, history and future plans. This transition includes, but is not limited to: • Destination immersion trip for our team to meet with you and your stakeholders/partners• Evaluation and analysis of historical data and performance information • Existing brand asset evaluation and transition Monthly Agency Fee We recommend breaking down the annual agency fees into equal monthly installments. Services within this monthly agency fee cover all of the areas outlined in the RFP: 31 SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Tahiti Tourisme Submittal Forms Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SUBMITTAL FORMS -19- SECTION I: PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL FORM The undersigned declares that she or he has carefully examined [__________], which is hereby made a part of this proposal; is thoroughly familiar with its contents; is authorized to represent the proposing firm; and agrees to perform the specified work for the following cost quoted in full: Work Plan Budget 2024-25 2025-26 Service $ Amount % of Budget $ Amount % of Budget Brand Strategy & Management Account Strategy & Project Management Creative Services Paid Media and SEO Strategy & Management Paid Media Buy Website Maintenance & Services Content Development Reporting Other Total Certificate of insurance attached; insurance company’s A.M. Best rating: __________________. Firm Name and Address Contact Phone Signature of Authorized Representative Date Bid 2401-002City of San Luis Obispo 2/9/2024 4:18 PM p. 23 RFP #2401-002 Miles Partnership, LLLP 6751 Professional Pkwy, Suite 200 Sarasota, FL 34240 A+ Mina Robertson, VP 916-792-0187 3/1/24 $40,000 3% $20,000 2% $90,000 8% $65,000 6% $200,000 17% $175,000 15% $35,000 3% $40,000 3% $575,000 50% $640,000 56% $125,000 11% $125,000 11% $65,000 6% $65,000 6% $15,000 1% $15,000 1% $5,000 0% $5,000 0% $1,150,000 100% $1,150,000 100% Blended Hourly Biling Rate $150 Annual Hourly Billing Rate Increase 4% Terms of Payment Net 30 No Additional Costs/Charges unless requested by Visit SLO, and would be estimated. 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A statement on this certificate does not confer any rights to the certificate holder in lieu of such endorsement(s). COVERAGES CERTIFICATE NUMBER:REVISION NUMBER: CERTIFICATE HOLDER CANCELLATION © 1988-2015 ACORD CORPORATION. All rights reserved. The ACORD name and logo are registered marks of ACORDACORD 25 (2016/03) ACORDTM CERTIFICATE OF LIABILITY INSURANCE Zurich American Insurance Company American Guarantee & Liability Ins Co. Steadfast Insurance Company Continental Casualty Company Markel American Insurance Company 12/22/2023 USI Insurance Services, LLC/CL 201 Alhambra Circle, Suite 900 Coral Gables, FL 33134-5108 305 669-6000 Esther Garcia 786-454-2015 Esther.Garcia@usi.com Miles Partnership LLC** 6751 Professional Pkwy W Ste 200 Sarasota, FL 34240-8450 16535 26247 26387 20443 28932 A X X 04/09/2023 10/01/2023 10/18/2023 04/09/2024 10/01/2024 10/18/2024 $5,000,000 Ded $100,000 $1,000,000 Ded $10,000 $3,000,000 Ded $0-25K ** Miles Partnership LLLP, Miles Partnership II LLC, Coraggio Group LLC , Adgenuity, LLC, Tourism Exchange USA, LLC and Black Diamond USA, LLC Professional/Technology/Media Errors & Omission Liability coverage is written on a claims-made basis Cyber Liability included under Professional Liability D&O Limit $3,000,000 / EPL Limit $3,000,000 / Fiduciary Limit $3,000,000 Deductible $0-$25,000 (See Attached Descriptions) Miles Partnership LLLP Miles Partnership LLC** 6751 Professional Pkwy W. Ste. 200 Sarasota, FL 34240-8450 1 of 2#S43050769/M43037627 MILESMED1Client#: 1054358 BLKZP1of 2#S43050769/M43037627 Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAGITTA 25.3 (2016/03) DESCRIPTIONS (Continued from Page 1) The General Liability includes an automatic Additional Insured endorsement that provides Additional insured only when there is a written contract/agreement that requires such status, and only with regard to work performed on behalf of the named insured **Miles Partnership II LLC; Tourism Exchange USA, LLC are included as named insureds. 2 of 2 #S43050769/M43037627 SUBMITTAL FORMS Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo -20- REFERENCES Number of years engaged in providing the services included within the scope of the specifications under the present business name: . Describe fully the last three contracts performed by your firm that demonstrate your ability to provide the services included with the scope of the specifications. Attach additional pages if required. The City reserves the right to contact each of the references listed for additional information regarding your firm's qualifications. Reference No. 1: Agency Name Contact Name Telephone & Email Street Address City, State, Zip Code Description of services provided including contract amount, when provided and project outcome Reference No. 2: Agency Name Contact Name Telephone & Email Street Address City, State, Zip Code Description of services provided including contract amount, when provided and project outcome Bid 2401-002City of San Luis Obispo 2/9/2024 4:18 PM p. 24 9 Chattanooga Convention & Visitors Bureau Sean Phipps, Marketing Director 423-424-4405 / sean@chattanoogatourism.com Brand development, creative management, media planning and execution, analytics and reporting (began working with them in 2019 to present) Visit Loudoun Beth Erickson, President & CEO 703-771-4964 / erickson@visitloudoun.org Creative management, media planning and execution, analytics and reporting (began working with them in 2019 to present) 112 South St SE Leesburg, VA 20175 200 W M.L.K. Blvd Suite 1200 Chattanooga, TN 37402 SUBMITTAL FORMS Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo -21- Reference No. 3 Agency Name Contact Name Telephone & Email Street Address City, State, Zip Code Description of services provided including contract amount, when provided and project outcome Bid 2401-002City of San Luis Obispo 2/9/2024 4:18 PM p. 25 Visit Sarasota County Erin Duggan, President (941) 955-0991 ext. 108 / eduggan@visitsarasota.org 301 N Cattlemen Rd Suite #203 Sarasota, FL 34232 Brand development, creative management, media planning and execution, digital and content management, analytics and reporting (began working with them in 2013 to present) SUBMITTAL FORMS Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo -22- STATEMENT OF PAST CONTRACT DISQUALIFICATIONS The proposer shall state whether it or any of its officers or employees who have a proprietary interest in it, has ever been disqualified, removed, or otherwise prevented from bidding on, or completing a federal, state, or local government project because of the violation of law, a safety regulation, or for any other reason, including but not limited to financial difficulties, project delays, or disputes regarding work or product quality, and if so to explain the circumstances. ◼Do you have any disqualification as described in the above paragraph to declare? Yes No ◼If yes, explain the circumstances. Executed on at _______________________________________ under penalty of perjury of the laws of the State of California, that the foregoing is true and correct. ______________________________________ Signature of Authorized Proposer Representative Bid 2401-002City of San Luis Obispo 2/9/2024 4:18 PM p. 26 3/1/24 Sarasota, Florida SUBMITTAL FORMS 38 SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Tahiti Tourisme Work Samples APPENDIX: Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 40Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach SAMPLES The team at Visit Virginia Beach had been without a strategic and creative agency of record for several years. Following a competitive RFP, they selected Miles to provide branding and creative services, campaign creation, media planning and placement, photo and video production and several strategic/consultative services. To begin, we started with a thorough discovery, destination immersion, stakeholder interviews and multiple audits across the full spectrum of the CVB’s marketing and communications channels. SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 41Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach To further inform our process, we: »Leveraged our own research relationships and analytical tools to provide additional destination insights »Evaluated past creative campaigns, brand and messaging and creative directions with quantitative online research »Reviewed website analytics to measure engagement and conversions for all marketing channels against generally-accepted target benchmarks Among the findings from this research and discovery was the overwhelming need to strengthen Visit Virginia Beach’s brand identity and develop a more robust asset library of images and video to support the destination’s campaigns. Concurrently, stakeholder interviews and research indicated the CVB’s primary tagline, “Live the Life”, was viewed positively but lacked support or context, both in terms of campaign creative and copy. SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 42Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach Our goal, then, was to take the destination’s marketing and communications to the next level to connect and engage with their audiences. After all, great marketing campaigns aren’t about a sale. They speak to universal needs and desires. They take audiences toward something they want and can connect with, essentially, a journey filled with warmth and emotive language and visuals that makes them feel good. To shift Visit Virginia Beach’s brand positioning and campaigns from transactional to inspirational, we embarked on a major branding exercise with the CVB team and stakeholders. Our focus was concentrated on building a holistic brand ecosystem that wove everything together and tied it to the “Live the Life” tagline. As part of this, we conducted five photo and video shoots to develop extensive brand assets for advertisements, social channels, website content, print and more. In addition, we developed a comprehensive brand book that included new logos, wordmarks, logo animations, color palettes and a brand manifesto to adjoin new eye-popping creative with fresh video and photo assets. SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 43Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach At the highest level, the brand manifesto functions to guide and support the tagline. Here’s a high-level excerpt: When you’re “living the life,” it’s easy to connect with your best self, with loved ones, and with business colleagues. In Virginia Beach, our locals live the life every day. In fact, we can’t wait to share our way of life with new friends. It’s no secret that we are known as one of the happiest communities in the country. We’re happy, so our smiles are genuine. Virginia Beach is a friendly hug. A warm handshake. A hearty laugh and a healthy dose of the unexpected. Virginia Beach is also packed with experiences that create lasting memories. We teach visitors how to enjoy life on a new level. The art of “living the life” starts by connecting with what matters most – happiness. Next, we gave life to the “Live the Life” brand tagline with a campaign (again, the below is an excerpt from a robust brand messaging and positioning document). SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 44Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach Happiness is a Real Place As the sun rises over the Atlantic, Virginia Beach opens one eye, then the other, and smiles. The chatter of seagulls floats on the breeze accompanying the gentle cadence of waves breaking ashore. Soon the laughter and banter of young and old rises above the music of the morning, promising a day of togetherness and memories in the making – here, where happiness is a real place. SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo V I R G I N I A B E A C H X H A P P I N E S S I S A R E A L P L A C E M I L E S P A R T N E R S H I P The future of Virginia Beach’s brand is bright. It’s even brighter by putting our residents and business owners at the heart of everything we do. We need to think outside the box. Outside of film, photography and design. Building successful brands is a marathon and not a sprint. Branding is everything. Everywhere. 24/7/365. Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLEBuilding a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach SAMPLES Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo V I R G I N I A B E A C H X H A P P I N E S S I S A R E A L P L A C E M I L E S P A R T N E R S H I P Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach V I R G I N I A B E A C H X H A P P I N E S S I S A R E A L P L A C E M I L E S P A R T N E R S H I PFind Happiness! SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach For guidance, we also wanted to have an ambition- state brand ethos to apply to all of the creative for campaigns. This included the following: The beach will always be our anchor, but we must journey beyond Virginia Beach is a cultural epicenter and a cutting-edge center of creativity that audiences need to be made aware of Inclusivity and diversity are spawning groundbreaking ideas within the destination, and this needs to be much more evident in our visual assets and messages From a performance standpoint, “Happiness is a Real Place” has been a tremendous success. Not only do the CVB’s team, the advertising advisory committee, key businesses and partners in the community, and even the Mayor of Virginia Beach, love it, but so do our target audiences. Engagement, traffic to the website, conversions—everything—is moving up sharply since starting work with the DMO in April of 2023. Together, we’ve done a lot. A whole lot. And fast. SAMPLES SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 52Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo 52 Building a Stronger Brand for Visit Virginia Beach Results? We've got 'em. We’ll start with the real measure of success, performance stats for the Visit Virginia Beach website reflecting the past three months (September to November 2023) since the launch of "Happiness is a Real Place" and complementary sports and meetings campaigns. Total website sessions traffic has doubled, with roughly the same amount of ad spend Awareness is also building, with a 31% increase in organic sessions The new social media videos and images launched from our shoots have had strong results, with engagements across Facebook and Instagram up 227% and post-link clicks up 287% Meeting and convention website content pageviews from all traffic sources are up 1,255% Sporting facility website content pageviews from all traffic sources are up 216% Hotel searches from media impressions are up 303%, but even better, actual bookings grew by 382% SAMPLES SAMPLES "The Original. The One. The Only.” Brand Campaign for The Palm Beaches SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESBrand Campaign for The Palm Beaches “The Original. The One. The Only.” didn’t happen overnight. It began with a new positioning statement for The Palm Beaches, identifying it as the must-visit destination for the golden age of travel, and—after several creative iterations— establishing its new campaign concept. “The Original. The One. The Only.” appeals to all of The Palm Beaches’ target audiences: affluent couples and families, cosmopolitan professionals in the Northeast and drive-market visitors from South Florida. These audiences appreciate a destination that sets itself apart from other warm-weather destinations, specifically those in Florida, and The Palm Beaches achieves that. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, it proudly stands on its own as America’s First Resort Destination. SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESBrand Campaign for The Palm Beaches Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo In December 2020, Miles facilitated a week-long video and photo shoot to capture content geared to peak and off- peak visitors. Once digital, OOH and video assets were developed, focus groups consisting of The Palm Beaches’ target audiences gave qualitative responses on the creative; quantitative testing was also done concurrently. After a bit of final tweaking based on consumer feedback, the new campaign launched in February 2021. The primary goal of the campaign was to significantly increase awareness of The Palm Beaches as a distinctive South Florida experience, positioning the destination as being unlike any other. SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 56Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESBrand Campaign for The Palm Beaches THE GOLDEN AGE OF TRAVEL IS BACK. With breeze-filled days and elegant nights. We invite you: come explore the beach destination unrivaled by any – the ultimate getaway. The one favored by those in the know, who won’t settle for anything less than The original. The one. The only. ThePalmBeaches.com Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 57Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESBrand Campaign for The Palm Beaches The results speak for themselves with an impressive 52% rise in hotel occupancy, not to mention a 99% boost in Instagram and Facebook engagements, a 76% increase in sessions on ThePalmBeaches.com and 100-plus positive media mentions. More than 60% of those surveyed said they’d be more likely to visit after seeing the new campaign. 52%rise in hotel occupancy SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESBrand Campaign for The Palm Beaches Brand Partnership and Influencer Campaign with Lilly Pulitzer Miles helped spearhead a brand partnership between The Palm Beaches and Lilly Pulitzer with “The Lilly Pulitzer Guide to The Palm Beaches,” an interactive, inspirational online guide for travelers and shoppers. Next, we created a fun, vibrant social media campaign featuring four Instagram influencers outfitted in wardrobes supplied by Lilly Pulitzer. The influencers followed an experiential itinerary through The Palm Beaches, designed (pun intended) to complement the content found in the guide. The resulting videos and photos were shared on the influencers’ Instagram pages, The Palm Beaches’ and Lilly Pulitzer’s social media channels, ThePalmBeaches.com and on YouTube. SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESBrand Campaign for The Palm Beaches Our four-day video and photo shoot at 13 locations across The Palm Beaches resulted in 142 new pieces of content—and an ROI of 10:1. Overall engagement was high across all channels, with a significant number of shares and users tagging others—giving the campaign additional impressions without any additional expense. The influencers’ posts about the destination had a combined reach of 469,400—which is an estimated media value of $504,600. SAMPLES Launching First-to-Market Targeting Tactics for Visit Savannah SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 61Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESLaunching First-to-Market Targeting Tactics for Visit Savannah Visit Savannah asked Miles to craft a campaign that would generate travel during the sluggish winter season. While our objectives were fundamental awareness, engagement, visitation— our approach was anything but. Rather than a traditional path, we built a campaign that—to our knowledge—had never been done by any destination, regardless of size or budget. SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE 62Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESLaunching First-to-Market Targeting Tactics for Visit Savannah The differentiator was laser-sharp targeting, achieved by: »Leveraging a previous large investment with Adara to identify custom audiences based on our client’s geographic and psychographic criteria. »Pairing cutting-edge Identity Resolution Software with these Adara audience profiles, matching them with actual customers via Amazon’s DSP and targeting them with Visit Savannah messaging. »Partnering with best-in-class out-of-home vendors such as Accretive Media, enabling us to amplify our message during consumer commutes in targeted cities and, via geolocation, retarget and monitor the behaviors of consumers who engaged with it. »Getting ahead of tracking challenges across partners and platforms by layering in platform-specific solutions such as Adara Impact and the Google Ads Data Hub to create a more holistic picture of our results. SLIDE TITLE SLIDE SUBTITLE Miles Partnership | Visit San Luis Obispo SAMPLESLaunching First-to-Market Targeting Tactics for Visit Savannah For a campaign that lasted just over 45 days, it delivered truly measurable spending in Savannah: Results: »More than 80,000 hotel searches, which resulted in 1,795 travelers making 952 bookings for an estimated 2,057 room nights »Morethan25,000flightsearches, which resulted in 2,363 travelers making 1,543 bookings for approximately 6,516 nights » Purchases tracked through Visa Insights show the campaign generated 3,960 transactions in Savannah, resulting in more than $241,000 in sales and identifying unexpected emerging markets for the destination we are targeting with current campaigns » All told, the campaign resulted in a remarkable 1,056% return on ad spend 1,056 % return on ad spend 92022 DESTINY AWARDS ENTRY | Digital Campaign Campaign Dates & Creative Visit Savannah’s Incremental Winter Campaign ran from Nov. 8 – Dec. 31, 2021. Digital Banners BACKGROUND TACTICS RESULTS CREATIVE 92022 DESTINY AWARDS ENTRY | Digital Campaign Campaign Dates & CreativeVisit Savannah’s Incremental Winter Campaign ran from Nov. 8 – Dec. 31, 2021. Digital Banners BACKGROUND TACTICS RESULTS CREATIVE 92022 DESTINY AWARDS ENTRY | Digital Campaign Campaign Dates & CreativeVisit Savannah’s Incremental Winter Campaign ran from Nov. 8 – Dec. 31, 2021. Digital Banners BACKGROUND TACTICS RESULTS CREATIVE OOH Nativo :15 OTT and CTV Thank you for the opportunity to earn your business.