Montana’s "Nothing" Campaign Brings Home Something — Montana’s Office of Tourism Wins Prestigious National Award for Marketing Excellence in the Tourism Industry —

Montana’s "Nothing" campaign is bringing home something big: a U.S. Travel Association Mercury Award for innovative tourism marketing.

The U.S. Travel Association recognized the Montana Department of Commerce, Office of Tourism with the prestigious Mercury Award for Best Overall State Tourism Marketing Program for its "There’s Nothing Here" campaign during the organization’s annual conference held recently in Salt Lake City, UT.

In congratulating the Office of Tourism, Dore Schwinden, Director of the Montana Department of Commerce said, "Being able to deliver groundbreaking tourism marketing helps Montana attract travelers from around the world. It is those visitors that support over 28,000 Montana jobs and bring $2.5 billion of new money into Montana annually. I commend the work being done and look forward to showcasing Montana in new and distinctive ways going forward."

In collaboration with MercuryCSC, a Bozeman-based marketing communications agency, MTOT designed the 2010-2011 campaign to cut through the competitive and cluttered travel advertising environment. The elements of the advertising work effectively in a positive manner because they speak in an unexpected way to Montana’s key brand pillar of spectacular, unspoiled nature.

The campaign took a modest yet provocative approach to let Montana sell itself using stunning imagery and minimal words. The elements of honesty, the unexpected and simplicity prevailed in all of the executions. Montana’s award-winning campaign launched in March 2010. To view elements of the integrated campaign, visit http://j.mp/bXM450.

Not only is the campaign interesting and appealing, it delivers results. In a series of pre- and post-campaign research to determine the effectiveness of the campaign, studies found that those that had seen the advertising were as much as 2 ½ times more likely to want to visit Montana than those unaware of the advertising. Plus, for every $1 invested into the campaign, visitors spent $104 in Montana. (Leisure Trends Group, 2010)

In response to receiving the award, Consumer Marketing Manager Katy Peterson said "After having elements of our "Nothing Here" campaign recognized at last year’s Mercury Awards for Best State Tourism Print Advertising Campaign and Best State Tourism Interactive Marketing Campaign, I was confident that with the additional innovative components that we’ve since integrated into the campaign and the corresponding results, we had a really strong case for winning Overall Program this year."

About the Mercury Awards

The National Council of State Tourism Directors (NCSTD) Mercury Awards, presented at the U.S. Travel Association’s Educational Seminar for Tourism Organizations (ESTO) Conference were created in 1985 to recognize members for excellence and creative accomplishment in state/ territory tourism marketing and promotion, and inspire, by showcasing outstanding work, the continued development of imaginative and exciting marketing and promotion programs.

For more information about Montana’s current marketing campaigns, visit: http://www.travelmontana.org/consumermarketing/current_campaigns.asp.