ConVis Wants Its Visitors To Get Back to Nature
Marketing: Agency Planning To Spend $600,000 for Its ‘Nature/Nurture’ Campaign
BY CONNIE LEWIS
Staff Writer
Tourists flock to San Diego to go to the beach.
But the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau is banking $600,000 of its $4.1 million fiscal 2003 advertising budget on the theory that some will also want to go backpacking, bicycling and practice yoga.
“We’ll be spending some ad dollars on niche marketing as well as general marketing,” said Tom Di Zinno, president of Di Zinno Thompson advertising, which handles the ConVis account.
Tagged the “Nature + Nurture” campaign, Tammy Haughey, general manager of Di Zinno Thompson, said such niche publications as Backpacker, Bicycling, Runner’s World, Mountain Bike, Yoga Journal and Organic Style will feature ConVis ads.
Di Zinno described their readers as “highly affluent, very heavy travelers” that ConVis should not overlook in trying to attract visitors.
“The nature/nature campaign is really an extension of the regular campaign,” Di Zinno said. “You have to refresh consumers’ opinions about a place and give them new reasons to come or you lose them.”
Another reason for the new ad thrust is many tourists have changed their vacationing habits since the terrorist attacks of September 2001.
“Post-9/11 people have focused more on the intangibles of life,” said Kerri Kapich, ConVis’ vice president of marketing. “They want to get outdoors more.”
The new ads will break in January. Like the general advertising aimed at such publications as Conde Nast Traveler and Sunset Magazine, they will peak in the spring, Kapich said.
But the bulk, about 43 percent of the ConVis ad budget, will be directed at a combination of media , newspapers, magazines, outdoor billboards and radio, in what Kapich termed “key feeder markets” of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, Seattle, Denver and Dallas.
Advertising for the area’s major attractions , SeaWorld San Diego, Legoland California and the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park , which comes under the heading of “co-operative partner programs,” will also peak in the spring, she said.
ConVis’ total operating budget of $16.2 million for fiscal 2003, which runs through June, was down nearly $200,000 from the prior year, or roughly the same amount that was pared from the advertising budget.
ConVis experienced a decrease in revenue from the San Diego Unified Port District and a fallout of membership, from 1,700 to 1,600, Kapich said. The Port District is one of three government entities, including the county and city, that funnel funding to ConVis.