Mandate Objectives/Purpose:

• Increase appetite for Grand Rapids Meetings and Conventions
• Elevate Grand Rapids to a Tier 2 Midwestern convention destination of choice
• Increase the profile of West Michigan, regionally and nationally
• Cultivate a greater share of regional leisure travelers
• Elevate the appeal of Grand Rapids as a place to live, work, and play
• Demonstrate positive impact on the overall tourism economy

Program of Research:

Awareness/Image and Profiling Research:

The first stage involved analysis of our syndicated travel research and a custom image and branding study:

Demographic and trip profiling of recent Michigan visitors using data from Longwoods’ syndicated Travel USA® study of 200,000 households annually.

Custom Awareness and Image Survey to benchmark how Grand Rapids and the adjacent lakeshore communities were currently perceived in the marketplace, including strengths and weaknesses versus the competition.

Based on the findings, it was determined that the best approach was to launch a brand within a brand. West Michigan offered a destination experience and opportunity to position Grand Rapids as the “Grand City” within this unique and exciting region. That said, West Michigan was not “sexy” enough and lacked some key motivational ingredients that ultimately led to Michigan’s West Coast. The challenge then became to ensure that the regional position was mutually beneficial to all communities, allowing them to celebrate their individuality under the new regional banner, and to ensure that by raising the overall regional appeal it would elevate the strength of the individual community marketing initiatives.

Concept Testing:

A total of nine focus groups were conducted in three markets to test alternate brands and advertising campaigns. The purpose was to ensure that messages contained in the communication materials resonated, communicated what was intended, confirmed any overlooked pitfalls, ensuring that the claims were believable, and ultimately, enabling the selection of a brand name and campaign direction.

Accountability Research:

Having fielded the campaign in spring/summer 2003, it was time to determine whether people were responding to the message, what the investment payback was in terms of increased visitation, and to quantify whether public and private sector dollars were being well spent.

In order to provide a defensible and accurate estimate of the incremental impacts of the spend; Longwoods fielded its proprietary Accountability Study utilizing a mail panel statistically balanced to be representative of households. Self-completion questionnaires were mailed to 2,600 households across advertising markets.  The results quantified a number of short-of-sales impacts, as well as providing crucial estimates of incremental visitor volumes, related incremental traveler expenditures, taxes generated, and thereby, the financial return on the advertising investment.

Results:

Based on the findings of a Longwoods ROI Benchmark Study executed in the fall of 2003, the new brand, Michigan’s West Coast, clearly resonated with potential visitors, yielding positive lifts in overall destination appeal, provided a halo effect for regional communities, and delivered short-term incremental ROI that exceeded stakeholder expectations. In addition to the indirect impacts on convention sales, the 2003 campaign generated 291,000 incremental leisure trips to the area, and over $29 million in spending, equivalent to a 41:1 return in traveler spending for every dollar invested.