Destination Marketing Podcast Episode 4: Matt Borud
Matt Borud: It's an incredible campaign. I've told people that I actually think the campaign has made me a better father. And I don't know how many ad campaigns you can say that honestly have done that. Adam Stoker: Okay, everybody. Welcome to the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm Adam Stoker, your host. And my co-host Jordan Barker's here as well. Jordan Barker: Hello. Adam Stoker: And we are very excited for today's episode. We've got a guest today, a special guest from the state of Idaho. His name is Matt Borud, and he's going to talk to us little bit about one of my favorite tourism campaigns that's ever been created. It's the 18 Summers campaign for Idaho. Matt, how are you doing? Matt Borud: I'm great. Thanks, Adam. Adam Stoker: Thanks for coming on with us. We're excited to chat with you today. First of all, we want to just learn a little bit more about you. We have a question that we ask everyone that comes on our podcast. What is your dream destination? If you were to go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Matt Borud: That's a great question, because I kind of have to subdivide that, right? I've got my wife and now kids, so what would we be doing that they would love? So my first thought would be something like Fiji or Bali. We're all kind of water, beach people. But got my second thought about this, and it's very, very selfish. I'm an avid golfer, and I've got some family that we've gone on some incredible golf trips together. We did a trip to southwest Ireland a couple of years ago. And my wife would kill me, but I would love to go to northern Ireland, Scotland, and play another week or 10 days straight worth of golf where the game was invented. For purposes here, if my wife ever listens, I'd love to take my wife to Fiji or Bali. That'd be the answer. Adam Stoker: That's awesome. I love to golf myself. Actually, yesterday was my birthday and I spent all day. In fact, it was my first time ever golfing 36 holes in a day here in Utah. Have you golfed here in Utah at all? Matt Borud: Nice. No, I haven't. I've played a lot of places, but haven't been down in Utah. Where were you playing? Adam Stoker: There’s a city called Midway here in Utah, and they have some great courses. My dad, brother and I went up and played a couple of the mountain courses up in Midway. Matt Borud: Oh, awesome. Adam Stoker: Yeah, one of them was Wasatch Mountain, and the other one was Crater Springs. And they were dynamite. We had a great time. Jordan Barker: Do you want to share your scores with the listeners, or no? How far do we want to go down this rabbit hole? Adam Stoker: I think we agreed- Matt Borud: I don't want to share mine, so. Jordan Barker: Okay, fair. Fair enough. Adam Stoker: We agreed when we started this podcast that we wouldn't share any sensitive or confidential information. Jordan Barker: All right. Adam Stoker: I think that falls under that category. Jordan Barker: That's probably fair. Well played. Matt Borud: Agreed. Adam Stoker: But Ireland. I can't imagine going to Ireland. That's crazy. Matt Borud: It was phenomenal. We played seven straight days. It was unbelievable. I mean, some of these courses ... we played a couple courses, Tralee and Lahinch. And forget which one, I think it was Tralee, was designed by Arnold Palmer. But when we finished designing it, his statement was, "I designed the front nine, God designed the back nine." You're in these hillsides and cliff sides and ocean views and the dunes and the rolling hills. I couldn't recommend it more. It was absolute heaven. Adam Stoker: Wow. I'm just moderately jealous. Just moderately. Well, tell us a little bit about your story, Matt. Tell us how you got into tourism and a little bit about your role that you're in today. Matt Borud: You know, blind luck. And maybe the luckiest and best move that really could've ever happened in my career. Five years ago, I was working for a fantastic little marketing automation software company here in Boise called Balihoo. And we helped national brands with distributed user bases — groups that have really large co-op programs. So, think like Aflac — they have 70,000 premier agents. Kohler has 20,000 premier dealer stores across the country. Ace Hardware — a big 5,500 store cooperative setup. We'd work with a big national brand, a corporate marketing team and we would take their national level marketing creative, put it into our cloud-based software tool — a web-based tool. And then what it would do is allow for customization. So if you own Adam's Home and Garden and you have eight locations across the Wasatch front, you could take your Kohler creative that's in the platform, customize it for your sale, your imagery, your copy, whatever it is, and then go ahead and fulfill that marketing order or that advertising order. It was a great tool. Unfortunately, probably a little bit ahead of its time. I had been there for a little while and was kind of looking for another challenge and was fortunate to meet some folks that were within the department of commerce that were looking for a different approach. More of a digital approach to kind of revamp Idaho Tourism's program. So, I was fortunate enough that the timing was right, and I met the right folks. The opportunity presented itself and it's the best thing I've ever done five years ago. My role, I oversee all the commerce department's marketing and communication efforts. Tourism is probably the largest portion of that, but we do have some economic development responsibilities layered in there, in addition to some of our innovation initiatives which generally take the form of some university-industry, grant, partnership-type programs. But tourism is ultimately probably my biggest passion. It was my biggest passion I didn't know that I really ever had. I've always loved to travel, have always loved to travel. You're so enriched by those travel experiences, and I've been fortunate to have many of them throughout my life. But never connected the dots to the travel and tourism industry until five years ago. Now, I find myself as one of the leaders of our program. It's been a wild, fun, fantastic ride and we're hoping for more good years ahead. Jordan Barker: That's good stuff. So, my background is primarily on the corporate side. And my background is also digital marketing. And so I'm just curious to see, what has been your experience? Is there anything that translated from your past life in the corporate-America world that you've taken with you into the tourism industry? And the reason I ask that is just, for me it was definitely a bit of a mindset change that I needed to think about the tourism industry. There was definitely some similarities, but there's also a lot of different aspects to the tourism industry as opposed to marketing software. For example, the world that you came from. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Anything that translated from your past life? How do you think about the tourism industry differently from what you had done up to that point? Matt Borud: That’s a great question. Because in my previous job, my actual responsibilities were more on the B2B side of things. Making sure that our clients were happy and were utilizing our software to the fullest. But what you would end up finding yourself doing is, you really couldn't do that without getting ingrained in their campaigns and getting ingrained in how they were using our software and understanding what their campaign goals were and the consumers that they were subsequently trying to reach. So, while my direct responsibility wasn't a consumer marketing type role, I had exposure to some of the best marketers in the world, really. The Kohler brand is an iconic brand. Aflac, New Balance, Wendy's. Some incredible organizations that our company was fortunate to serve, and I had the opportunity to observe. You definitely, pick up on a lot of that. So it is very, very, different. I think the biggest thing that I've taken, and where really the paths cross very tightly is in cooperative marketing principles. For Idaho, we don't have huge budgets at any level, whether we're at a state, regional, or the local community level. So we're always looking for are smart ways that we can build a co-op — where we can bring two, three, four, five partners together in a way that we all can put a little bit of money into this and it can benefit all of us. I think that's more where I think I saw a lot of real effective corporate-type marketing programs through my previous experience. And it's been one of the initiatives that we've just tried to continue to build on with our partners, to get more private investment and then leverage public dollars further. Adam Stoker: Very cool. So you were able to bring the ability to get multiple parties involved over to the tourism office and benefit that way, huh? Matt Borud: Yeah. It's obviously, everything we do. It's a collective kind of team effort. And I think more-or-less what we've really wanted to do in that sense is, particularly with our communities and local partners, have a lot of local organizations that are run by volunteers. Volunteers are selfless, they love their communities, they understand the value that it brings to their local businesses. And these are chamber volunteers. I mean, they're some of the best people you'd ever want to meet. And it's through no fault of their own, they've got their own day jobs and their own families and then they're volunteering to partner in our programs. So we can bring some expertise and some strategy to say, "Let's take a look at these digital partners and let's take a look at co-oping in this way. And here's how the state can be helpful for you when you're going to private partners in your community. And let's see if we can organize a little bit of money here to elevate all of our visibility." Then, by bringing a little bit more of the media recommendations or ways that we can strategically make it more efficient and effective for them, they've really been able to run with it and kind of turn some of those programs into what they are now. Adam Stoker: Very cool. Well, I think we'll shift gears just a little bit. I'm worried that the takeaway from this podcast is going to be Adam's just super jealous of Matt. That'll be the takeaway. But Idaho is a special, special place for me. And I told you, my family is from Idaho. And my dad introduced me when I was 12 years old to a fishing hole up in Island Park that he had been going to for 30 years, I think. And we go every year without fail and we'll go fishing there. It's a pretty special place. It's the type of place where I remember one time we were at a gas station just outside of Island Park and the guy that was working there said, "Well, where do you guys fish?" And I started to give him directions and my dad punched me. Matt Borud: Yep. Definitely. Adam Stoker: So Idaho, it's got kind of a special place in my heart. So I think it's awesome you get to participate in the tourism advertising specifically for Idaho. I want to talk about the 18 Summers campaign, because I have kids. You mentioned you have kids, right? Matt Borud: Yes. Adam Stoker: Jordan, I know you've got kids. You have 18 Summers and then they're gone. Not many ad campaigns have made me cry, but the first time I saw the 18 Summers campaign I was like, "Dang those guys. They got me." So tell me a little bit about that campaign. The origin of it, and maybe what your experience has been like being involved in that campaign. Matt Borud: It's incredible. I echo your sentiment 100%. I've told people that I actually think the campaign has made me a better father. And I don't know how many ad campaigns you can say have honestly done that. We have a three-year-old, and we have a seven-week-old. Last summer, we were everywhere camping with our, then, two-year-old. Getting her outside, getting a fishing pole in her hands, getting her on one of those strider bikes, campfires and marshmallows. We were all over the place. We hear a lot of those stories from people, and it means the world to us. I wish that I could take credit for it or that the folks in our office could take credit for it, but 100% of the credit goes to our ad agency Drake Cooper. Drake Cooper has been a partner of ours for, gosh, I want to say upwards of 30 years. They're an incredible ad agency here in Boise. And that campaign ... it's funny, actually. When I joined the department in February of 2014, the department had just finished an RFP for agency services and Drake Cooper had won the bid, and they were the contract holder previously. And so when I stepped in — literally my first week on the job was understanding that, "Hey, this RFP was completed. This bid was signed, sealed and delivered and we're just going to continue working with the ad agency we had been working with. They won the bid. Problem is, we haven't done any work on our prime season campaign because of this bid process." So this is February and looking at it now, we launch our prime season campaign literally the Monday after the Superbowl. And I'm starting this job the Monday after the Superbowl and we haven't done any work on any of this. So we're thinking we've got to get in gear here. We've got to get rolling. So, my third day on the job, we went over to Drake Cooper and they said, "Hey, we know we've got to get moving on this. We kind of banked a few ideas. We want to get everybody's feeling. And then let's get producing, let's get going." So we sat down and the first idea they pitched us was 18 Summers. They had a little video associated with it. I remember sitting there thinking, "This is my third day on the job. I don't really know a lot about this, but I think this is really good. I know enough to be dangerous right now, but I think this might be the winner." There's not a dry eye in the room. It really hit us. And so we ran with it. Again, I can't credit Drake Cooper enough for that. They really were the ones that brought the idea to the table. Then, it's just been a great partnership kind of going forward as we've really explored and expanded what 18 Summers can mean. I think where you wrestle with this a little bit as parents, and then to a degree as advertisers, is that you don't really conceptualize the fact that there's always next summer or next month, and what we really wanted to do was quantify time, put some guardrails around the fact and kind of punch you emotionally to say, "Actually, there is a limited amount of time. And very soon, faster than you think, there won't be a next summer, when they're little and when they're in that spirit of exploration and learning." You know with your kids, I'm sure. I feel it with mine. There's absolutely nothing better than seeing my daughter experience something for the first time. To see her eyes light up and just have a blast. Travel affords you those experiences. So, we've been incredibly fortunate to have been able to bring this campaign to life. It's something that we're passionate about. We love it, and we're always exploring ways that we can reinvent it and keep it moving forward. Because it is all about family travel. Family travel in Idaho is enormous to us. But family means a lot of different things. It isn't just mom, dad, brother, sister. It's grandpa, grandma. It's aunts and uncles. It's close friends and neighbors. And it really becomes the idea of making sure you're spending these valuable years adventuring with your family. We took a little bit of criticism right off the bat because we didn't really explicitly tie it back to Idaho. We didn't really tie it back to a location. We just sort of left it out there as you have 18 Summers. And the premise always was, just go vacation. You only have a short amount of time with your family. We sure hope you do it in Idaho, but just go get out there and take a vacation with your family. And I think that a lot of folks have come around to that idea that, "Hey, we don't have to just list a bunch of Idaho locations here." We certainly shoot everything in Idaho and we feature incredible Idaho destinations and we're always talking about ways to adventure in Idaho. But really, the theme is just go adventure with your family while everyone's young and spirited. Adam Stoker: I love that. I love that. And I actually want to come back and touch on that in just a moment. One of the interesting things that you talked about was your relationship with your agency. I've actually spoken with Jamie Cooper up at Drake Cooper, and he talked about how you guys and the agency have been partners since 1981. And I'm sitting here thinking, "Holy cow. How do they keep such a great partnership and relationship for that many years?" It's a pretty unique dynamic, right, between you guys and that agency? Matt Borud: It really is. I mean, we are an extension of them, and they are an extension of us. It's more family. We talk a lot about within our commerce department and our tourism department, we are a very close-knit group here. We're a small team. Very nimble, very responsive to one another. And they're very similar. Our tourism program started in 1981. I actually want to say the ad agency began working with the department in 1978. So I think it's been a 31 year relationship. I always feel bad when I run into colleagues at national tourism events and they're talking about, "I got to hop on the plane to go to Chicago or New York or LA or wherever to go meet with my agency." And folks will say, "Well, who's your agency? God, I love your guys' work." And I'll tell them, "Drake Cooper." "Where are they located?" "Well they're in Boise. It's a 15 minute walk from my office down to their office." It's just an unbelievable setup. But Jamie is first class. He's as good as it gets. Their founder and namesake Bill Drake is one of the godfathers of tourism in Idaho. I mean, if you're going to have a Mount Rushmore of Idaho tourism, Bill Drake's face is in the center. And their team is just talented, innovative, and creative. They know our business, and it's just a great partnership. We're very grateful. Jordan Barker: That's really good stuff. Obviously, for most of the listeners, if you aren't familiar with the 18 Summers campaign you should definitely go check it out. Matt, can you talk a little bit to the success of the campaign and how you guys think about what makes a campaign successful? At the end of the day, when you take a step back and you say, "Yep, this worked," what does success look like for you guys? And was there a moment where you said, "Yeah, this absolutely is working, or this is resonating with our audience"? Can you talk to that a little bit? Matt Borud: Yeah, that's a great question. I'm a numbers guy, so we tie back the success of our campaign to our lodging tax collections. All our efforts are funded through a dedicated 2% lodging tax on all hotel, motel, B&B, private campground, private RV parks, and vacation rental properties across the state. Like many other state programs, we're funded that way. So we're always looking at month-over-month, year-over-year, how are our collections doing? And we've been fortunate that ever since we launched the campaign, the year after we launched the campaign, we were up 13.4% in collections over the year prior. The next year, we were up 12.2% over the year prior. The following year, we were up 11.2% over the year prior. And this year, we're up 10.13% over the prior year. So, since we've been running this campaign, we've increased double digits year-over-year four straight years in our collections reporting. That's the end-all-be-all benchmark for us. I think that when you go back to your original premise of defining success and kind of when did we know we hit something here, was the immediate feedback we got from people that was right along the line of, Adam, what you had said earlier. People that were like, "I saw this ad for the first time and I was in tears." Seeing Idahoans share our social posts that are 18 Summers related with their heartfelt messages or their messages of how this idea positively impacted their family to go take a vacation. Or certainly, responses from other colleagues in the industry saying, "God, I wish we had come up with that idea. There's only a few ideas out there that I've ever said I wish I had that idea, and 18 Summers is one of them." It’s that kind of feedback loop that we've been so fortunate to receive over the last few years from people who the campaign has really resonated emotionally with. And as a small destination surrounded by incredible marketers, we've got to hit people in a unique way and this campaign has really done that for us. So from the numbers perspective, it's been great. Our occupancy rates, our average daily rates, all those. Lodging metrics are very, very positive. We've been amid explosive tourism industry growth. So, I know the campaign has played a small part there. But the feedback that we regularly receive from people, that really is the icing on the cake for us. Jordan Barker: That makes sense. I think the numbers speak for themselves, right? I mean, some of the success you guys have had there. I'm sure there's a lot of listeners that are destination marketers, and as they listen to you speak about the campaign, they're salivating at the numbers that you just mentioned. They would love nothing more than to see those types of results for their destination. If you were to give some advice on how they could replicate a campaign of this magnitude either through the process with your agency or otherwise, what would you say to them? What advice would you give them to be able to do something that's been this powerful and this impactful? Matt Borud: That's a great question. I've been asked this before, and I don't think I've ever given a very good answer. But I think what it ties back to for us — and I don't want this to sound buzzwordy or generic — the campaign is authentically Idaho. You see these joke videos about destination marketers that like, "We have all of it. We have fine dining. We have beaches. We have amusement parks. We have bikes. We have smiling people running down the street." And it's just more and more and more, layer and layer and layer of, "We have it all. We have this, we have that. We have something for everyone." My advice is that you've got to get away from that. You've got to run as fast and as far as you possibly can in the other direction. What we've done with 18 Summers, and really all of our collective effort, is to really identify what is authentic to Idaho. And family travel is that. You've got to research these things. It's not enough to just kind of anecdotally wet your finger, stick it in the air and say, "I think this is the way we should go." We put a lot of dollars and a lot of effort into research so that we know who our travelers are, and we have a pretty dang good idea what is bringing people to Idaho. Then, look at your competitive landscape and where is there a gap? Where do you have an opportunity to be authentically yourself where you're reaching a strong number of people with a propensity for your product in a way that maybe you can differentiate yourself from your competition. And family travel has kind of been that niche for us. It's flattering when we see other states or other destinations start coming in and trying to get in on our corner a little bit. It's a tough question because in destination marketing you've got a number of stakeholders. You've got a lot of stakeholders, public partners and private partners, they all want and deserve to be represented and you've got to figure out a way that elevates your message above that that is inspiring. It’s more about inspiration than information. And inspiration in an authentic way. Authentically in terms of what your destination is. What your community is. Adam Stoker: You've touched on several points there. I've got a couple of follow-up questions from that. One of the things that you mentioned is, instead of showing every single activity or attraction that's within a destination, focus on inspiration not information. Right? I look at it a little bit like if you're marketing a product, it's so tempting to just talk about all the features that your product has as opposed to the benefits you can get from using the product. And when I look at a tourism destination, I would say your features are all the biking, hiking, fishing and all the different things there are to do or all the different places there are to visit. But the benefit doesn't change. When you're looking at how to convince someone to take action as a buyer, whether it's to buy a product, visit a destination or take their family somewhere, how are we communicating to them that their life is going to be affected by this purchase decision? Tell me a little bit about how you guys — and maybe I'm going to touch on the stakeholder piece here, too, because every stakeholder wants their hotel represented, etc. — everybody wants you to mention them, right? But you just said, that based on this campaign, your double digits have been up every year that and all you talk about is the benefits. So tell me a little bit about, for one, how you were able to get that cleared by all the stakeholders that wanted a piece or a mention in the campaign, and then how you guys were able to focus on benefits as opposed to the features of your destination. Matt Borud: It's a great question. It's a great tactical question. I wouldn't say that we're actually even finished with it. It's an ongoing process. It's been five plus years, and I would say I'm fortunate that I inherited and joined this organization that was a very, very healthy organization already with a great number of partnerships dating back decades. At Idaho Tourism, we had a lot of cache built up, I would say, with those partners. So, we were able to ask them to trust us a little bit on this and it certainly helps when you have a campaign as powerful at 18 Summers to say, "This is what we want to do. We realize this is a little different of an approach than in the past, but we haven't let you down before and we're thinking this is the right direction." A lot of it was trust. Then, certainly seeing the results has certainly helped everyone. I think it took us a little while to explain it to folks. But even we needed to see the proof in the pudding to say that this would work, that it isn't about listing your business on the website, it's about inspiring people to travel to Idaho. They are going to find you, and if we can inspire enough people, if we can reach enough eyeballs with our product, they are going to find you. I think a lot of those partners really did have to take a leap of faith with us. Then, we try to provide as many practical, tangible resources as we can. So whether that's itinerary generation, like tool on our website called the backpack where you can save adventures and ideas so you can go back later as you're coordinating and planning your visit and itinerary. We just wanted to make sure folks understood that, “Hey, we're going to be sticking with this kind of overarching message, but all of our tools, whether our website tools or itineraries, are going to have your information available there. And if we do this right and we inspire enough people, you're going to see that the rising tide is going to lift all ships and you're going to see the uptick.” We're fortunate that it has really worked out that way, but I do think that there is room in the equation for both. The example we always say, whether it's with our agency or kind of internally, we always talk about a mom in Tacoma. She's our general target. We're looking at we got a mom in Tacoma who's got a couple of kids, and does this help our mom in Tacoma take her kids on the rafting trip that she wants to take them on this summer? So we can inspire her to say, "You know what, this is summer number 12, 10, and 7, and I'm not going to miss that rafting trip this summer. I'm doing it." And if our website can provide the itinerary ideas or the list of resources for her to then make that adventure accessible, that's sort of the magic formula where we've seen most success. Jordan Barker: I like that. A lot of the destinations that we talk to, they talk about different methodologies around campaign thinking, and more specifically, campaign duration. And so one thing I'm curious about is, how is your office thinking about this campaign? A lot of the destinations that we'll talk to, they think about campaigns either by season or they'll have an annual campaign. And then they're constantly coming up with the next idea, the next idea, the next idea. How does your office think about this campaign? And if you were to speak to other destinations out there ... and I'm sure it's going to vary, obviously, depending on the destination. So I'm asking kind of a difficult question broadly but for a very specific application. How do you guys think about this campaign, and when should a destination consider rebooting their theme, and how should they think about that? Matt Borud: That's a great question. For 18 Summers, we've talked about this in the last couple of years. And maybe it's a blessing in disguise, but we don't have a huge media budget. We are vastly, vastly outspent by our neighbors in Oregon and Utah, and then to a lesser degree Montana and Wyoming. So as we've kind of looked at the saturation of 18 Summers, we know from the impressions that we're buying digitally or that we're receiving broadcast or through other media that we really have not overly saturated our target market with this message. And we've continually seen new and increased response year over year. So I think that we will retire 18 Summers when we feel like we have saturated our target market with the message and we're not seeing the response at a level we would like to. I think, then, we'll ask, “Is there another idea out there? What's the next step? What's the next phase for us?” That would be my recommendation to other folks who are kind of thinking about that. We break down our campaigns. We have our prime season campaign. It's our summer campaign that 18 Summers is our flagship there. We run that from the first part of February through August. I mean, we've started seeing in the last couple of years that the campaign has even had success for kind of those last-minute planners and we actually purposefully ratchet up the emotion in our ad copy so that at the beginning of the campaign, in February, March, and April, the ads that are running are more planning and dreaming phase, they're a little more aspirational. A little bit more dreamy. When we get into May, June, and July and we're into, "The time is now. Book your travel." And then when we get into August, maybe late July/August, even into September, we start getting into, "Don't miss another summer. Don't blow it," kind of a thing and really trying to kind of tug on heartstrings there. We've seen pretty good spikes in late season travel and pretty good spikes in activity there. So that campaign, our prime season campaign like I said, kind of runs through that August, September-ish timeframe. Then, we've recently launched a fall campaign that's a little bit shorter where we're kind of more focused on harvest culinary experiences. Then, our winter campaign gets started in the fall as well, and that's geared toward winter outdoor sports that we generally run through January. Depending on snow, maybe a little bit into February. But we've been slowly starting our campaigns earlier. When we're doing prime season campaign in February, some of our winter partners weren't necessarily thrilled to see us doing that. They said, "Hey, there's still snow on the ground and they've still got maybe a month, month-and-a-half of really good skiing left. We don't want to see you guys advertising summer yet." But we're turning around and saying, "Hey, we're pushing winter in October now," and trying to get that message out for them a little sooner than we otherwise have before. But it's a moving target. And base as much of it as you can on data, research, numbers and then trial and error. Just hope you get it right and stick with it when you do. Adam Stoker: I think what I love about what you guys have done is, with your seasonal campaigns and the way that you start to get a little bit more aggressive about missing the summer in the late season is, you guys have found a way to add urgency to tourism and travel when it's very difficult to say, "You need to book your trip now." Because in a lot of cases it's, "Well, it's not like Island Park is going anywhere." And I'm going back to Island Park because that's where I've been, but Island Park will be there next year. And you guys have found a way to once again pull on that emotion and say, "The time is now. You guys have to book this trip now or you've missed a summer and you've only got 17 more." Or, depending on the age of the kid, a whole lot less than that. So I love what you guys have done there. Matt, I don't know if you've noticed, but we could probably talk about this with you for hours. We're just nerding out on tourism marketing right now. Matt Borud: I love it. I love it. Adam Stoker: And I appreciate all the insight that you've given our listeners, that you've given us. I think I could probably schedule five more episodes to talk about this. But I think we probably ought to wrap up as far as this episode goes, and I really want to just boil it down and simplify it a little bit for some of our listeners. If you could just tell any destination or any tourism related business one tip that's going to help them drastically improve their marketing or their efforts in marketing, what would you say? What advice would you give? Matt Borud: I would go back to the question you had asked a little bit earlier. I would work diligently to identify what is truly unique and authentic about your destination. You may not think that it’s the coolest thing in the world, but I guarantee you there are a lot of people out there that do. And when you travel, you're opening your mind; you're opening your spirit up to new experiences. And so, you may think no one is going to come, that no one would ever come here to do X, Y, or Z. But for a traveler, that may be exactly what they would love to spend that afternoon doing. I read this really interesting article just a couple weekends ago that was — I want to say it was from like a Hartford, Connecticut newspaper — and the guy was talking about Connecticut's upcoming tourism campaign. He wasn't overly complimentary of what he was seeing. And part of his message was, "This is an area that has incredible history of spy history during the Revolutionary War." They have an incredible history of poetry and poets writing epic work while in that area. You wouldn't know it, but they have some of the best pizza in the country. I mean, Frank Sinatra used to send drivers up to Connecticut to get pizza from Hartford because it was the best pizza out there. They tell stories about Steven Spielberg and others doing the same thing. And this guy's point was, "We can try to compete with destinations that have beaches or things like that, but we probably don't stack up there. Why don't we focus on our history of spies, pizza, and our poetry?" And I couldn't help agree with it. Again, I think you can kind of get back into this litany of, "We have all these different things that are the same as all these other destinations." But when you step back and say, "What really makes us unique? What's authentic and what's just kind of a cool story?" Even if you may not think it's cool, I guarantee you there are a lot of other people out there that do. And when it is authentic to your destination, travelers are going to see that, it's going to resonate and it's going to be an experience that they can't get anywhere else. I think that's ultimately what we're striving to do as destination marketers, is to provide this unbelievable experience that you can't get anywhere else. It's challenging to identify that, but I would really encourage others to make those hard decisions and try to focus on what's authentic to your area. Adam Stoker: I think that's great advice. And it's funny, when you're the one that's in the weeds, I guess, or the one that's in the moment it's easy to get sick of your own story. Especially, if you've been telling it for a long time. But I think your point is well made that when people are hearing that story for the first time, and if you have a limited budget or a limited media buy, chances are people are not hearing that story as much as you think they are. I think it's a great point to watch for those diminishing returns, and then maybe consider making a drastic change or something like that. But to focus on the center of what you're really good at, what makes you unique, and focus on that. I think that's great advice. So thank you so much, Matt. Matt Borud: Absolutely. All that's easier said than done, but I wholeheartedly agree with you. Adam Stoker: Great, great. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. Like I said, I think you've given our listeners great advice here. I want to remind all of our listeners that we have a LinkedIn group called Destination Marketers. We're going to be sharing our podcast episodes on that LinkedIn group, and it's also a place for tourism marketers to collaborate and interface with each other. Maybe share challenges or successes and then collaborate on a solution together. We're excited about that. We're getting more users every day added to that group and we’re hoping to continue to grow and help each other grow together. Once again, this has been Matt Borud from the state of Idaho talking about the 18 Summers campaign today. Really appreciate Matt joining us today. This has been the Destination Marketing Podcast with Adam Stoker and Jordan Barker, and we'll talk to you soon.
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