Partner Spotlight: Sweet Home Alabama Works with Brand USA to Promote the State
Sweet Home Alabama is working with Brand USA to inspire international visitors with all the exciting travel opportunities in the state. As the official consumer brand of the Alabama Tourism Department, Sweet Home Alabama is a Brand USA Gold Partner and has been a supporter of the nation’s destination marketing organization since 2013.
Through this partnership, Brand USA is helping Alabama and in-state partners promote its myriad tourist attractions – from natural wonders to cultural hotspots and historic landmarks of the U.S. civil rights movement.
For example, this spring, Sweet Home Alabama participated in an Expedia co-op campaign in the United Kingdom with Alabama Mountain Lakes, Birmingham, Gulf Shores & Orange Beach, and Huntsville. It was the first time the state and its partners have engaged in a co-op with one of the top global online travel agencies targeting potential international consumers as they look to book travel.
In India, Brand USA teamed up with Sweet Home Alabama and the Huntsville/Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Alabama Mountain Lakes and Space Camp to promote the December premiere of the new Bollywood film “Zero.” The campaign, designed to build consumer and travel trade awareness of Alabama in this fast-emerging market, included an online contest to win access to a private screening and receive Alabama-branded merchandise. Other activations included promoting Alabama inside eight large movie theaters in Mumbai and New Delhi as well as a private screening for 270 media representatives along with the online contest winners. The ongoing campaign has generated 29 million media impressions thus far and is expected to grow by end of May.
Most notably, Brand USA is now working with 14 states, including Alabama, which are joining together to market the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.
This exciting new initiative is designed to bring visitors from around the world to important historic sites and promote awareness of one of the most significant periods in the history of the United States.
Brand USA recently partnered with the tourism organizations for Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia to support a tour operator campaign in the German market. In addition to helping disseminate the four-state itinerary to tour operators, Brand USA developed two additional self-drive itineraries on Brand USA’s travel trade website for receptive tour operators to add bookable product. The two new itineraries are:
Lastly, Brand USA has amplified the travel trade initiative by generating earned media and creating content through Brand USA’s “United Stories” campaign. Efforts on both of these fronts will continue through the balance of FY2019, and Brand USA will continue to work with Sweet Home Alabama and the 13 destinations on the trail to identify ways to drive international visitation with these uniquely American stories.
Sweet Home Alabama is a great example of a state partner that has strategically engaged Brand USA to enhance its international marketing efforts across a variety of topics. For more information on travel to Alabama, visit https://www.visittheusa.com/state/alabama or https://alabama.travel/.