Campaign Imminent: Virginia Tourism taps new agency partners as national TV spend skyrockets (Score 51)

Sales Lead: Concluding a review, Virginia Tourism (VT) named Sway Creative Labs and Love Communications UT as its new agency partners.

• Effective July 1, 2023, Sway is VT's lead advertising agency, and Love Communications is its lead paid media agency.
  • Sway will create and implement various innovative marketing strategies, campaigns, and programs.
  • On the other hand, the innovative and effective media strategies that Love Communications is planning will also help VT reach new visitors.
• Both agencies will work to position VT as an ideal travel destination via high-level brand awareness campaigns and media strategies.
• This shift replaces The Martin Agency, the incumbent lead agency partner for both advertising and paid media since 2018.
• The organization will likely:
  • Launch a new campaign next year
  • Implement strategy shifts
  • Keep increasing spend
  • Conduct additional agency reviews
• Target demographic: 
  • Older millennials and Gen-X with a strong male skew

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: VT has allocated roughly $74.4k toward digital ads YTD, already almost double the roughly $38.1k allocated in all of 2022.
  • Last year: The organization allocated around $38.1k toward this channel in 2022 after having allocated % more, around $48.3k, in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: VT's 2023 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as MLB Baseball, NHL Hockey, Sam's Garage, NBA Basketball, and World Poker Tour.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, the organization has spent approximately $752.7k on digital ads, down % from the approximately $812.5k spent by this point of 2022.
  • YTD data: VT has earned ~94.5m digital impressions YTD via Facebook (46%), Instagram (31%), YouTube (15%), desktop display (4%), and mobile display (4%) ads.
  • Last year: Last year, the organization's estimated full-year spend more than doubled to $1.4m from that of $613.5k in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes Google Ads.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Since agency reviews often follow one another, I'd suggest contacting soon to see if VT is in search of any additional new agency partners.
• Current agency roster:
  • Sway Creative Labs: Lead advertising agency partner (July 2023)
  • Love Communications UT: Lead paid media agency partner (July 2023)

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix.