Marketing Review — Fall 2008 - (Page 15)

“Simple Moments,” submit your best family vacation photo. HOMEWOOD SUITES where Maine can really differentiate, like whale watching—which became a focus in our campaign. If you look at our photos you will see images of travel possibilities where we index much higher than anyone else in the region.” THE RESULTS: In the first year of the revamped campaign, Maine was the only New England state to increase market share, and that continued into the second year. In 2008, Maine enjoyed one of its strongest winter seasons for tourism ever with occupancy strong all over the state. “New England is not coming back any time soon,” says McCartin, “so we have to be ahead in the region. We keep changing visuals to reflect target markets. For instance for the AAA magazine we would not focus on hiking or rock climbing, but more on antiquing or coastal touring. Another marked departure this year, with the slowing economy, we decided to do something we hadn’t done before. Instead of just relying on the regions and their attractions, we needed a statewide effort. We knew that if we were focusing on a close to home vacation, our neighbors were going to be doing the same thing. So we ramped up the campaign within the state using radio and having the governor encourage people to stay in the state. We supported that with television and newspaper supplements. And, although we had resisted adverting in Canada because of limited resources we decided to do so this year because of the strength of the Canadian dollar. The result was a tremendous increase in Web site visits. We’re now confident that someone who has decided to come to New England will visit our Web site to see what there is to do.” n Obstacles were addressed in a positive way. For instance, there were images of visitors under an umbrella at a beach. The idea was to surprise people, according to Tom McCartin, president of WKP—Spier, with things they didn’t know about Maine. However, business stayed flat or slightly up. While the state held its ground after the campaign, Maine and New England remained flat. THE SOLUTION: In 2005, WKP-Spier recommended a shift in strategy—to a FALL 2008 • HSMAI MARKETING REVIEW market share strategy, focusing on people who had already decided to take a New England-style vacation and convincing them to take that vacation in Maine. “We had to face the fact,” says McCartin, “that we couldn’t really compete with destinations that have huge budgets and global strategies; the only way for us was to get a bigger share of the market already coming to New England. Maine’s product hasn’t changed in recent years—nature and the rocky coastline—but there are things 82823121/taxi/gEttY iMagEs With a career spanning 30 years, Harvey Chipkin, a well-known and highly regarded travel industry writer, is a regular contributor to this magazine and to a number of trade and consumer publications. He has been twice selected as the recipient of the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s Pearson Award for Excellence in Journalism. He can be reached at hchipkin@comcast.net. 15

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Marketing Review — Fall 2008

Marketing Review – Fall 2008 Contents The Online Marketer Success Stories Forecasting Trends Ian Schrager: The Revolutionary Man Leaving No Stone Unturned: The Quest for Ancillary Revenue Gaga Gadgets for Execs on the Go: Functional New Portable Technology to Make Life and Work on the Road More Hospitable Effectively Weathering the Ups and Downs of the Economic Cycle Experiments in Podcasting Higher Transportation Costs and a Slowing Economy Shift Hotel Room Demand

Marketing Review — Fall 2008

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