Overview
When past reliance on low-hanging regional traffic and convention guests had finally topped out, the city determined that a shift in philosophy was required to fuel a new vision for the city’s growth. An evolved course was set for Choose Chicago.
Enter Envisionit.
We are finishing our 5th year supporting Choose Chicago as their digital AOR. During our partnership with the nation’s third-largest city, we’ve guided them through a new digital forward approach, a complete overhaul of their website, an industry-devastating pandemic, an always-evolving digital landscape, and beyond.
Together, we’ve blown past benchmarks, including tripling campaign reach, connecting with high-value audience segments, and helping to smash annual visitation records — and we’re just getting started.
Setting the foundation
To help Choose Chicago accomplish their ambitious vision to expand beyond a regional audience, we set out to create a digital-forward program that wasn’t bound by geography but guided by consumer behavior.
First, we looked at search behavior and cross-device utilization to better understand our audience’s journey from the first touch through booking a trip. This set the course for migrating the organization away from large network and broadcast buys, instead tailoring channel utilization to more efficient investments where we could measure impact.
We developed a framework that capitalized on behavioral and contextual signals to guide media strategy — not just proximity to the destination. So whether it be regional, national, or international objectives, location no longer defined the program, it only represented a variable in our targeting mix.
- Segmentation: With a new emphasis on interest and travel intent, we prioritized investment to audience segments based on proclivity to spend, willingness to travel, and general perception of the destination.
- Content: We aligned our work to the city’s messaging strategy that emphasized an authentic and inclusive vision of Chicago.
- Targeting: Aligned audiences to digital partners who indexed highly against our segmentation, shifting from broadcast to a digital forward cross-device approach.
- Markets: Instead of letting state lines limit our scope, we shifted from a regional focus to a fully national and international effort.