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- Page
- Introduction 3
- The Advertising 4
- Research Objectives 5
- Methodology 6
- Results in Detail 8
- Travel Motivators 9
- Montana’s Image 13
- Product Delivery 52
- Short-of-sales impacts of the Advertising 58
- Bottom Line Advertising Impacts 69
- Carry-Over Impacts 75
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3
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- Longwoods International was engaged by the Montana Department of Tourism
to undertake a program of research designed to:
- Determine Montana’s image as a tourism destination within its
advertising markets
- Evaluate the Department’s 2004 tourism advertising campaigns in terms
of:
- Awareness
- The impact of the advertising on image
- The impact of the advertising on incremental travel to Montana and the
associated incremental visitor spending.
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- The advertising campaigns ran in the winter, spring and summer months of
2003-04 and consisted of:
- Winter Ads:
- A television commercial
- 2 magazine ads
- 2 direct-mail ads
- Warm Ads:
- 2 TV commercials
- 6 magazine ads
- A direct-mail piece
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- The objectives of the research were to:
- Determine Montana’s image as a travel destination and that of its key
competitors in order to examine:
- Image strengths and weaknesses
- Image vs. competitors
- Identify what is important to the traveler in choosing Montana over the
competition and, as importantly, what are the messages that the
advertising needs to convey in order to get travelers interested in
visiting Montana.
- Measure the effectiveness of the 2003-04 campaigns in terms of
delivering incremental visitors and visitor spending to Montana.
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- The research program consisted of a benchmark study conducted in October
and November of 2004.
- An 8-page survey was mailed in to 2,300 households:
- 1,000 distributed proportionately among a regional sample of residents
of Montana and contiguous states (Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, N. &
S. Dakota) and ”source-of-business” states (Colorado, Minnesota,
Oregon, Utah)
- 1,300 distributed among a national sample of residents of the remaining
states (excluding Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico)
- 1,275 surveys were completed, a return rate of 55%.
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- The sample was selected from the Ipsos-Insight national mail panel.
- The surveys were directed to a random adult (18+) member of the
household in order to ensure a sample representative of the adult
population of these markets.
- The survey package included black & white copies of the print ads
and storyboards of the television commercials that ran during the
campaign period.
- Data were weighted on key demographic variables prior to analysis to
ensure that the data are representative of and projectable to the
population.
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9
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10
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- In order to get people interested in visiting Montana vs. its
competitors (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Washington State, Oregon and
Arizona) it is important that the State be perceived to be an exciting,
popular and unique destination with lots to see and do for the whole
family.
- Given the travel climate of the day, it is also important that potential
visitors see Montana as a worry free travel experience.
- Unique tourism products, good sightseeing and great facilities also help
to differentiate destinations within this competitive set.
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- Must-see destination
- A fun place for a vacation
- Good for couples
- Good for adults
- Good place for families
- Unique vacation experience
- An exciting place
- Children would enjoy
- A real adventure
- Lots of things to see and do
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13
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- Montana has a reasonably good image as a tourism destination. Five out
of ten respondents strongly agreed that the state was an exciting
destination while 55% strongly agreed that Montana is a good destination
for adults. As noted earlier
these are the two most important image factors in predicting interest in
visitation.
- At the same time, however, a number of Montana’s key competitors also
have a good image and the communications challenge will be to
differentiate Montana from these competitors in the areas that are
important to travelers.
- Key image strengths over the average of the competition are in the areas
of:
- Outdoors – both the uncrowded, unspoiled open spaces and the outdoor
activities such as hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, horseback riding and
so on.
- Western character – unique western experience, western history, rodeo
events and dude ranches.
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- Our approach to assessing a destination’s tourism product is to compare
the image ratings of those who have never been to the destination, to
the image ratings of recent visitors.
- In effect, we are comparing expectations of a visit (ratings by those
who have never been) to the reality or product (ratings by those who
have been recently).
- In a perfect world, the ratings of the two groups are virtually equal
suggesting that the visitor’s expectations are being met.
- In our analysis for Montana, however, it appears that the visitor
experience is substantially better than the expectation.
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- This suggests that there is a communications challenge to inform
potential visitors that the Montana experience is even better than they
perceive it to be.
- It is of particular note that seven of the 10 communications hot button
discussed earlier are product strengths for Montana:
- Lots to see and do
- A must-see destination
- Good for families
- A fun place
- A place children would enjoy
- A unique vacation experience
- An exciting place
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- It is clear that Montana's tourism advertising campaign is working to
increase awareness of Montana as a travel destination and to improve the
state’s tourism image:
- In both the regional and national markets, respondents were more likely
to spontaneously and without any prompting mention Montana as a
destination they would “really enjoy visiting” if they had been exposed
to the advertising.
- Even though Montana already has a reasonably good tourism image, those
aware of the advertising rated the state higher on virtually every
image dimension than those who had not been exposed to the ads.
- It is interesting to note that seven of the top ten communications hot
buttons, were strongly and positively impacted by the advertising.
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70
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- We estimate that the Montana tourism advertising campaigns generated in
excess of 460 thousand incremental trips to Montana during the year of
the campaign.
- Based on spending and tax data provided to us we estimate that the
campaign resulted in approximately:
- $68 million dollars in incremental visitor spending
- $4.9 million in incremental state and local taxes
- For every dollar spent on the advertising campaign $3.50 in state and
local taxes were returned.
- Additionally, the advertising resulted in the planning of nearly five
million trips to Montana in the year following the campaigns.
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71
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73
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- Day Overnight Total
- Total Visitors 149,000 314,000 463,000
- Visitor Spending/Trip* $ 49.45 $ 193.83
- Total Spending $ 7,348,000 $ 60,964,000 $ 68,312,000
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- Spending Due to Advertising $ 68.3 Million
- State and Local Taxes * $ 4.9 Million
- Advertising Cost $1.4 Million
- Return on Advertising Investment
3.5 : 1
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Notes
