With over 50 million users planning travel online in the last six months and over 60 percent of all travel booked online, there is no escaping the importance of a digital media presence to deepen engagement with potential visitors to California. (Sources: Nielsen @Plan Winter, 2009; Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell (YPB&R)/Yankelovich Partners, "2007 National Leisure Travel Monitor" as cited in the Houston Chronicle, October 11, 2007)

In 2009-2010, we will use digital media to significantly expand the reach of California content across the Web, target visitors who are actively planning and researching travel, and drive highly qualified traffic to visitcalifornia.com (VCA).

Digital media can be broadly categorized into three segments:

1. Paid or bought media, which refers to any investment to place content or ads with publishers, on ad networks, mobile carriers, rented e-mail lists, etc.
2. Owned media, which includes existing Web properties, opted in e-mail lists. (Web site enhancements and improvements addressed separately in the “Foundational Programs” Work Plan.)
3. Earned media, which many refer to as “social media,” but which also includes PR, viral referrals and user-generated content.

The rapid growth of earned or user-generated media has important implications for marketing travel. A recent survey indicates that user-generated content is used by 40 percent of online travel researchers in their travel planning. Of that 40 percent, 36 percent named user-generated content as an influential factor in their decision, compared to 21 percent citing brand/reputation (Source: Jupiter Research, US Online Travel Consumer Survey, May 2008).

In designing our digital media strategy, we will leverage the following opportunities and capabilities:

• Robust targeting: Real-time targeting of desirable traits like purchase intent, destination, age, gender, income, past or current planning behavior and real-time browsing behavior.
• Identifying intent to book: Embed CTTC messaging in places where travel planners are actively booking travel (i.e. online travel agents like Orbitz) to actively influence decisions during this critical phase of the travel cycle.
• Positioning versus competitors: Use all forms of paid media to target individuals actively considering or purchasing travel to competing states or destinations. Users searching for “Florida Surfing Vacation,” for example, could be presented with a paid search placement for “California’s Greatest Surf Vacations.”
• Maintaining year-round presence to drive year-round visitation: Take advantage of the cost effectiveness of online spending to maximize spend against offline media placement, and own consistent presence and fill in the gaps in broadcast and print coverage, reaching a larger share of voice against those actively planning travel.
• Measuring, evaluating and optimizing in real time: Track the full spectrum of ad response from initial impression to engagement with content, and optimize campaigns to drive better response and improve media efficiency.
• Testing and learning always: Treat each campaign and tactic as a real-time, in-market platform to test creative and messaging strategy, deepen our understanding, and refine our marketing strategy toward the California visitor.
  

Paid Media Approach
Our paid media approach will focus heavily on expanding market presence to maintain a consistent share of voice and fill in the gaps when broadcast and print are not in market. We will make extensive use of the targeting capabilities available, including demographic (consumer lifestage), psychographic (where are they in planning/purchasing cycle) and behavioral (are they actively researching a trip, and how recently). 82 percent of advertisers in a recent MarketingSherpa/AdTech poll see a noticeable uplift in ROI (Source: MarketingSherpa/AdTech, Year End Surveys, Jan. 21, 2009).

We will also re-target Web site visitors by displaying ads only to people who have already expressed some interest in the state. We’ll target users who have already visited VCA (or a sponsorship partner’s), but who have not converted to a desired behavior (i.e. visiting partner site to book travel) or who have been exposed to our messaging through our online buy, but who have not responded. This “win back” targeting method will help to increase media efficiencies.

There are three main components of the 2009-2010 paid media strategy:

1.     Custom Travel Portal Site Sponsorships
A key pillar of the 2009-10 paid media strategy is to expand CTTC’s exposure to travel planners in as many phases of the traveler lifecycle as possible. The current site is a great destination for “lookers,” but we need the assistance of paid media to turn those lookers into “bookers” by actively targeting them in the critical booking phase of their planning.

As part of this effort, we will sponsor custom California content sections on travel Web sites that reach the majority of our target audience: active online travel planners. While it is not necessary to buy ad space from a great number of Web sites in this model, our goal is simply to target those sites that reach the highest percentage of our audience and have the capability of creating innovative programs for marketing to them through sponsorships.

As an added benefit, all content created by Web site partners will be licensed to expand the scope of the CTTC general content offering, supplementing the content provided by Sunset for visitcalifornia.com, as well as providing us the ability to swap out content and messaging strategy toward the campaign or season determined as the most relevant. Similar to an upfront buy with offline media, the year-long commitment to these publishers will result in added value ad placements and a lower per-impression media cost than if we purchased ad space exclusively on the same portals.

2.    Display Advertising on Ad Networks
Display advertising will be used to support campaign activity and seasonal events like the Amgen Tour of California. Ad networks aggregate space on a wide variety of publishers at a reduced rate. Besides their mass reach, they offer many targeting options, including the ability to track visitor behavior across an entire network of sites.

Search will play a large role in driving qualified traffic to VCA. Typically, search and display advertising campaigns running in tandem tend to boost each other’s performance; an integrated campaign boasting both offline and online media tends to boost brand awareness even higher than would any one medium running solo. According to Specific Media, running banner ad campaigns simultaneously with search boosted awareness and response by 155 percent in general, and by 274 percent for travel campaigns. (Source: Specific Media/Comscore Ad Effectiveness Study, 2007-2008, December 3, 2008)

A limited SEM test was conducted in 2008-2009 with the goal of testing broad reach terms driving overall traffic to VCA, and measuring the overall search lift in both traffic and conversion events (i.e. map downloads) when paid search was in market (as opposed to only evaluating organic search). Results were positive for overall lift with both in-market versus only organic. Paid search drove:

• $1.28 CPC (cost per click)/0.38% CTR (click-through rate)
• 43,229 visits to VCA
• 1,625 conversions (Visitor’s Guide downloads, etc.)
  

As we optimize our campaigns, we will be fine-tuning the strategy toward more targeted keywords driving to specific conversion events as well as evaluating the most efficient search networks to reach our goals.

Unpaid Media Approach
The rise of social media and “word of mouth” effectiveness are two of the most significant trends in travel today. 51 percent of online reviewers have shared their opinions on travel with friends, family and the world through blogs and sites like Facebook, versus 45 percent for all other product categories. (Source: UMC, “When did we start trusting strangers?” Word of Mouth Effectiveness Study, September 1, 2008)

1.     Encouraging Social Activity Via a More Portable Content Strategy
We will deploy a range of tactics that will invite travelers to “pick up” CTTC messaging and content and share with their friends and family. Social media tactics will complement and enhance the paid media strategy whenever possible. Paid media will serve mainly to promote CTTC content to the readers of media partners; the intention is that once readers interact with CTTC’s content and tools, they will then forward it to others in a form of “unpaid” media. Readers sharing content in this manner allows CTTC to extend its reach to the broader travel planning audience without spending additional media funds to do so.

2.    Testimonial Programs
We’ll work with travel Web sites and identify opportunities to initiate conversations about California. Paid media will initiate conversations through promotion programs that solicit reader input and feedback about their travel to California. The reader can review various aspects of California travel (landmarks, cities, attractions, etc.) and share those reviews with other site readers who are seeking information on the state during their own travel planning.

As we measure and optimize the effectiveness of paid and earned media, we utilize a number of different metrics. Before launching paid media or advertising campaigns, we will assign key performance indicators and continuously optimize to improve return on investment.

• Media performance:
  • # of impressions
  • # of clicks
  • click-through rate
  • cost per click-through
• Site engagement:
  • click to site conversion rate
  • actions taken on site
  • # of pages viewed
  • time spent with site
  • repeat vs. unique visits
  • types of content consumed
• Conversions:
  • partner site visits
  • map downloads
  • special deal views
  • coupon downloads
  • viewing travel tools
  • watching video’s
  • viewing/downloading Visitor’s Guide, etc.

• # of videos/postcards
• # of video/postcards/Visitor’s Guides sent to friends, time spent with a viral video or Facebook application
• # of times content is embedded on a blog or shared with friends, etc.