It’s the tourism campaign few people thought could be pulled off, but that everyone has been talking about. In an effort to combat misperceptions about the Gulf Oil Spill, BVK shot, edited and aired a tv spot each day nationally showing that the Beaches of Fort Myers-Sanibel are oil-free.
The spots featured “Dan,” a wacky Midwestern tourist who was sent to take a nine-day vacation and tell the world what he saw. The catch being that each morning his spot (always shot in a different part of the destination) had to be edited and uploaded by noon to the network to air that evening on the 6 pm nightly news. Within 48 hours of its launch, over 400 news outlets across the country picked up the story of the first-of-its-kind tourism campaign. But it didn’t stop there.
The campaign generated over 55 million media impressions, $4.4 million in earned media coverage, a 20% increase in web visits and over 1000 new Facebook fans. The New York Times raved about the campaign and The Orlando Sentinel said the effort should be a creative inspiration to other destinations and that the whole state is reaping the rewards of the Dan campaign.
