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

Social media campaigns. Paid search. Spotify advertising. Retargeting campaigns. Ads on Waze. Geo-fencing. Out-of-home. Website redesign.

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

To give people a true sense of place, we used television spots and social video campaigns to demonstrate what awaits in downtown Orlando each season.

Using the hashtag #FindYourSelfDowntown, we invited people to literally and figuratively find themselves downtown for everything from fine dining to outdoor recreation to major league sporting events. 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.

Social media helped fueled fuel more and more people “finding themselves 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.

Free online at-your-pace training generated recruitment interest among nurses

From proper bandaging techniques to patient pain management, these simple training modules served two very important functions. One was to improve the delivery of care beyond their clinic walls and the other was to help identify promising candidates who would want to be a part of this innovative organization.

Stories of Home Campaign

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 clicks

58.67%

Interaction rate on Google video ads on YouTube

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