Objective

Objective:

In June 2022, catastrophic flooding damaged Yellowstone National Park’s (YNP) iconic entrance outside of Gardiner, MT, having a detrimental effect on the heart of the tourism economy in the Park and surrounding ‘gateway communities’. Hoffman York (HY) worked with Visit Montana to develop and execute an emergency marketing and communications plan that ran in two key phases from July 2022 – February 2023 to inform both in-state and out-of-state tourists on the latest information and offerings.  

Insights & Analysis:

The HY team used secondary online research and conversations with Visit Montana, locals and officials to identify key insights that would help guide the planning process and classify the campaign goals, audiences and objectives.

Goals:

• Educate around viable activities and available offerings in the area.
• Safely fill capacity in these regions as it became available.
• Ensure the state didn’t lose out on travelers who may be planning a trip.
• Answer questions from the public and share important updates while highlighting recovery and resiliency efforts and inspire travel.

Audiences:

• Montana residents.
• Out-of-state drive markets.
• National out-of-state travelers who are planning a trip.

Objectives:

• Generate local and national media coverage (added focus in Dallas, Houston, and Seattle) to:
  • Create awareness that Montana is open for business.
  • Educate travelers on all the activities available outside of Yellowstone.
  • Highlight gateway community’s resilience.

Strategy

Phase 1 Strategy:

• ‘Open the gate slowly’ to not overwhelm the regions while recovery efforts were underway.
• Lead with an in-state audience and expand to local (drive) and national markets.
  • HY identified audiences via market data, site traffic being the most readily available data set.
• Coordinate with regions outside of YNP to determine what activities/events are available to travelers to create our plan and messaging.
• Work around the clock to keep up with the latest road openings/closings and protocol changes via the National Parks Services website, to keep our audiences informed.

Phase 1 Execution:

HY created a high-awareness plan to educate our identified audiences on the latest updates in the region through the following tactics:

• Press Releases: Created weekly press releases to communicate the latest updates around YNP in real time. We pitched our releases to key markets, as well as key trade media.
• Radio Media Tour: Planned a national radio tour in key markets to encourage travel.
  • We worked with in-state experts to answer questions about the flooding and encourage travelers to visit the YNP surrounding areas.
• FAM Tour: Invited a group of journalists from a variety of relevant publications and outlets to come and experience the Park and the surrounding areas.
  • We worked with the community leaders to determine what activities were available, to plan the best route and showcase the area.
• Custom Content: Created 32 custom Instagram story frames to promote travel to the regions around YNP and supply real-time updates to potential visitors, both in-state and out-of-state.
  • Followers received real-time updates and information regarding the Park and the surrounding areas through the Visit MT Instagram page.
• Yellowstone PSA: Partnered with the Paramount network to utilize actors from the hit television show, Yellowstone, to create a video PSA for YNP and the surrounding area to encourage travel, which we shared on Visit MT and Paramount’s social channels. 

Phase 2 Strategy:

To create national buzz, HY implemented a high-awareness tactic by partnering with a national daytime talk show and A-list celebrity, Drew Barrymore. Drew visited Montana to show viewers first-hand the communities are open for business.

Phase 2 Execution:

We highlighted offerings in communities immediately surrounding the Park to drive excitement and interest to come to Montana. Drew and her team visited Livingston and West Yellowstone to film two different segments that would air in one episode of her show.

• Segment 1: Drew and co-host Ross Mathews spent the day in Livingston visiting local small businesses and meeting with the shop owners.
• Segment 2: Drew fulfilled one of her bucket list items and went dog sledding in the mountains just outside West Yellowstone.

The segments were also shared to The Drew Barrymore Show website and social pages. Additionally, we worked with Drew to highlight behind-the-scenes moments on her personal Instagram page of over 17 million followers.

Results

Phase 1 Results:

The campaign was a huge success and generated over 860.2MM potential impressions.

• Media Coverage: Supported recovery efforts with a potential 852MM impressions.
• Radio Media Tour: 15 interviews with over 5.6MM impressions.
• FAM Tour: Hosted journalists from Thrillist, USA Today and Global Traveler Magazine, to showcase the Park and surrounding area’s offerings.
• Custom Content: Created 32 custom Instagram story frames resulting in over 315K story impressions, 686 link clicks, 1,200+ engagements.
• Yellowstone PSA:
  • Visit Montana: 150.3K plays, 155.8K reach, 9.3K likes, 2.1K shares, 415 saves and 253 comments.
  • Paramount’s Yellowstone (Added Value): 803.2K plays, 71K likes, 466 comments, 828 shares.

Phase 2 Results:

The campaign drove over 6x more impressions and engagements per post than the show’s average on Facebook and Instagram. It drove positive sentiment with comments to the posts mentioning how people wanted to visit Montana. In total, the program generated:

• 5.3M Impressions
• 1.8M Video Views
• 22.6K Engagements

Media