Brand USA Newsletter - September 2019

'United Stories' Adopting Thematic Style With its Video Storytelling

This month, a dedicated, branded sailboat – flying the colors of Brand USA’s “United Stories” campaign – sailed along Massachusetts coastal waters. It started in Cape Cod, navigated southwest to Martha’s Vineyard, and then proceeded east to Nantucket.

The trip was on the September itinerary for “United Stories,” the campaign that Brand USA launched back in January of this year. The goal of this campaign has been to highlight local and authentic travel experiences throughout the United States with the idea of inspiring travelers from around the world to visit these places.

With a nod to the vintage American road trip, content developers use “mobile, content-creation labs” – in the form of a classic American car, a Volkswagon camper van, a bicycle, or in this instance, a sailboat – to travel to designated itineraries each month to collect video and imagery that convey the stories of the places and people they visit. A minimum of two vehicles travel to at least two different locations each month.

On occasion, Brand USA has social-media influencers join the trips to amplify the messaging that the content-developers generate.

The current year has featured approximately two dozen destinations. Over the next 12 months, the campaign will evolve slightly. It will feature regional and thematic itineraries, yielding stories that have a more focused and potent impact. These itineraries will also underscore how the proximity of destinations can provide enhanced value for prospective visitors. And as a campaign, “United Stories” will assume a bolder profile in the marketplace with its branded “content-creation labs” becoming more visible.

Impact of video storytelling

Since it began, “United Stories” has presented video storytelling with substantial impact. These measurements (from January to present) reflect the power of the campaign:

  • 22.1 million video views
  • 25.1 million minutes of video content viewed since last January
  • 615 million impressions
  • 2.3 million social engagements
  • 130 percent increase in engagement rate, compared to previous campaigns

Content from the campaign has consistently elicited “comments, likes, and shares” on Facebook.

The content has also worked well with Instagram Stories, an Instagram storytelling feature that allows viewers to look at slide shows of the images and video clips that the content-creators develop.

Brand USA is collaborating with its agency partner, Beautiful Destinations, to capture and distribute “United Stories” content. With social media, distribution occurs at the speed of consumer consumption.

Impetus for the “United Stories” campaign emerged out of Brand USA’s desire to show the world that the United States is a nation of “many voices” – a mosaic of numerous traditions, stories, and outlooks that makes up the whole of the country. This, in turn, allows the USA to present a diverse, limitless range of travel experiences – available in, near and beyond the traditional gateway destinations.