Existing Event
Back in the late 1980s, Hudson was in search of a way to lift their cold weather tourism season. Amazingly, tourism officials there convinced two dozen pilots to launch their hot air balloons in their community in February. That's Hudson, in northwest Wisconsin, near Minnesota, in the middle of winter. Since then, Hot Air Affair, held in early February, has expanded to include winter Olympics, a torch light parade, fireworks and a marketplace of crafts and shops. Their success was helped along with a $5,400 Joint Effort Marketing grant in the category of Existing Event. Grant dollars paid for ads in Twin Cities' newspapers. According to the Hudson Area Chamber of Commerce, this is an event that fills hotels and keeps restaurants busy. In the dead of winter.
One Time, One-of-a-Kind
Ever hear of Biedermeier? Thanks to a Joint Effort Marketing grant in the One Time, One-of-a-Kind category, the Milwaukee Art Museum brought works of art from the the Biedermeier period to thousands of out-of-town visitors. Biedermeier: the Invention of Simplicity was the Milwaukee Art Museum's featured exhibition during the last four months of 2006. New York's Museum Magazine called it one of the top 10 exhibitions in the nation. Major stories on the exhibit appeared in nearly 80 publications outside Wisconsin, a real public relations goldmine for the state. Joint Effort Marketing funds went towards advertising in northern Illinois, resulting in more than 9,000 out-of-town visitors and traveler expenditures exceeding $2.5 million. Oh yes, Biedermeier is actually Gottlieb Biedermaier (the spelling changed over time), a fictional character from an 1840s Munich satirical magazine who came to symbolize a new model for living, of paring back and merging useful with beautiful. Now you know.
Sales Promotion
Bayfield is an idyllic little community on the shores of Lake Superior. Off-the-beaten path you might say. In 2003, the community breathed new life into its spring tourism season with a promotion called Bayfield in Bloom. The city offered gardening workshops, tours and great savings at lodging, restaurants and retail businesses. Bayfield used its Joint Effort Marketing funds, granted from the Sales Promotion category, to advertise the goings-on to residents of Milwaukee, Chicago and Minneapolis. In the first year of the campaign, an additional 900 room nights were booked. And Bayfield continues to “bloom” each spring with this promotion.
Destination Marketing
The Fox Cities - that's 18 communities located along the Fox River and Lake Winnebago in northeast Wisconsin, for those of you not familiar with that area of the state - turned to the Joint Effort Marketing program to promote its new brand image. Research identified that the #1 reason travelers came to the Fox Cities was shopping. So the region branded itself “Wisconsin's Shopping Place.” To attract shoppers in the traditionally slower months of March and April and ring up some overnight stays in the process, tourism officials used the Destination Marketing grant dollars to place print and internet ads in Wisconsin and Michigan. The total grant investment was just over $61,000 over three years. The total return was a cash-register-ringing $2.9 million.
New Event
The Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce was looking for a fall event to draw travelers in after the leaves had fallen and, with the Joint Effort Marketing grant program in mind, they conceived of the WhistleStop Festival. The year was 1998 and the plan was to hold the event the second weekend in October that would feature a marathon run along an abandoned railroad bed from Iron River to Ashland. The idea nabbed the Chamber a grant in the amount of $24,470 to help promote the event that first year. It worked, with some 400 runners showing up. Still going strong, the number of runners for this annual event typically tops 2,000. And it isn't just one run any more. There's a toddler run, a one-mile “prediction” race (runners predict their time and the person closest to their prediction wins), and both half and full marathons. Runners and their families get in on the pasta dinner Friday night and stay for music and a beer tasting after the races on Saturday. The event won Joint Effort Marketing funding in years two and three, and is now self-sustaining, thanks to corporate sponsorship and the help of 400 enthusiastic volunteers.