Case StudY

DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT BOARD: ORLANDO

The mission of the Orlando Downtown Development Board (DDB) is to strengthen the role of downtown Orlando as the economic, governmental and cultural center of Central Florida. The DDB is responsible for the planning, implementation and administration of the city’s core area redevelopment and development program. A big part of meeting this mission is launching campaigns that drive people to the downtown core to experience the urban Orlando experience.

SERVICES WE PROVIDED

Strategic planning, Market analysis and research, Marketing plan development, Campaign briefs & development, Creative designs, Photography and video development, Media plan development, Landing page development, Public relations, Influencer marketing, Traditional and Digital media buying and management, Analytics dashboard development and Reporting and analytics.

The Challenge

To make downtown Orlando an inviting place for people of all ages to live, work, and play.

Orlando’s downtown has a lot of competition to attract people to the heart of the city. Being located near some of the world’s most popular theme parks including Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld, the urban core is often never even reached by those coming to Orlando from other areas around the globe. The challenge is to promote downtown Orlando as an authentic urban experience, offering genuine and memorable recreational, dining, business, and residential opportunities.

Approach & Execution

Discover Yourself in Downtown Orlando: The #FindYourSelfDowntown Campaign

We developed a bold creative campaign, #FindYourSelfDowntown, designed to position Downtown Orlando as the ultimate destination to “find yourself” – whether through family fun, cultural and artistic experiences, vibrant entertainment, or unique local attractions.

Our campaign was tailored for diverse audiences, including specific outreach to the Hispanic community, ensuring inclusivity and resonance across Orlando’s population.

This distinctive campaign challenged and transformed previous negative perceptions, focusing solely on highlighting the unique and exceptional qualities that make Downtown Orlando a standout destination.

We crafted :30-second, high-definition films that romanced the downtown vibe, helping residents and visitors picture themselves in the scene and craving the same experiences.

From model and site selection to shoot direction and post production, we oversaw all aspects of creating compelling video campaigns that captured the essence of a day and a night spent downtown. Each scene was carefully orchestrated to show a variety of things to see and do, people of different ages and demographics, backdrops in some of the most iconic parts of the city core, and showcased models who enthusiastically demonstrated to the viewing audience the allure of “finding yourself downtown.”

In one seasonal campaign alone, Facebook and Instagram reached 3.78 million individuals and our ad sets were shown 18.2 million times. This was the platform where we reached the most people and where downtown Orlando’s message was seen the most times. While the adult-focused ad set generated the most website actions, the Spanish version got a higher CTR, indicating strong interest from this growing Orlando demographic.

Smart target audience segmentation reduced costs

For instance, by separating our campaigns by demographics on Facebook ads, we saw 6,400 link clicks within two months of launch. Consequently, we achieved a highly efficient and ultra-low average CPC across all of our ad groups.

Google campaigns produced the highest number of website actions

A strategic mix of search and display ads on Google prompted an amazing amount of actions in just three months for a summer campaign.

Nearly 4.5 million impressions were served through keyword searches, prompting 95,000 people to visit the website – all at an extremely low cost-per-click of just $0.63. This accounted for 41% of all actions recorded on the website from campaigns on multiple devices and multiple networks.

By visually showcasing all the excitement happening downtown, we created a “buzz” about being downtown through video campaigns that were delivered via social media, paid search campaigns, and programmatic retargeting – all of which focused heavily on video messaging. Campaigns were rotated seasonally and new creative was developed and launched for spring, summer, winter, and fall.

The Results

Data confirmed that more and more people were enjoying experiences downtown

The seasonal #FindYourselfDowntown campaigns motivated more people than ever to expect more from being downtown and local businesses, restaurants, retailers, and the City delivered.

23.5 million

Number of multiple campaign views

1,492%

Increase in age and gender demographic engagement

658.67%

Website conversion rate

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