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Case Study: Visit Virginia Beach - Covid Recovery in 2020

Case Study: Visit Virginia Beach - Covid Recovery in 2020


Digital Advertising through Orange142 led to a 724.35% return on ad spend and over $12 million in hotel tax revenue.

Our partners at Visit Virginia Beach have held onto the #1 spot in the nation’s Top 25 DMA’s for hotel occupancy, since June 2020. (Smith Travel Research) Using Orange 142 as the experienced destination digital media partner, the Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau executed an innovative and aggressive digital advertising program to reach known travelers in their top geographical markets.

The Virginia Beach CVB’s decision to primarily deploy paid digital advertising assets early-on in the crisis proved to be an immensely successful blueprint, leading the destination to be the #1 DMA in the United States for hotel occupancy for 18 weeks and running!

The ask: promote safer travel in Virginia Beach and give a lift in occupancy to the hotels and vacation rental properties.

The solution: Orange 142 team served multiple forms of creative in the form of strategic digital placements on desktop, mobile, tablets, and smart TVs, and saturated the markets with a clear message of, “We’re Open.”

Tactics: Native Advertising, High Impact Display Advertising, Video Advertising (Instream, Social), Connected TV, Paid Social Media Advertising, Retargeting Strategies, Email (Organic and Paid), Geofencing/Retrofencing, Lead Generation.

The results: Utilizing hotel booking data and digital media attribution platforms, Orange 142 media generated a direct 724.35% return on ad spend and over $12 million in hotel tax revenue.

Additionally, it was a top priority to ensure that guests in Virginia Beach felt safe and secure in their travel, so in response to that, the CVB and Orange 142 launched an in-market “pro-mask” campaign, geofencing all key hotspots in the community. Anyone who was browsing the internet within these hotspots was served an ad requesting that you, “kindly wear your mask while in Virginia Beach.” 

There are several outside considerations that contributed to the success of this DMO. A large digital advertising investment made by the city, action inducing assets developed by “i am OTHER”, the creative agency of the city’s famed native son, Pharrell Williams, unparalleled thought leadership and direction from the Visit Virginia Beach executive consultant, leadership, and MARCOMM teams, a huge organic reach and in-house content strategy, continuous digital optimizations, and recreations of the media plans and paid strategy, from Orange 142, all played a key role in pushing each user further down the customer journey to travel safely in the midst of a pandemic.

We are immensely proud of Virginia Beach’s success and want to give a huge “congratulations” to everyone involved in this project. Great partnerships are not formed overnight, but through challenges such as those we’ve witnessed in 2020. We strive to be a partner that is transparent, strategic and dependable, and we are grateful to our colleagues for their collaboration and trust.

Contact Orange 142 today to learn more on our post-COVID recovery strategies and ways we can enhance return on investment for digital media and marketing services.

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