18 Summers, Idaho Tourism’s successful summer travel campaign earned an Effie award in the Travel & Tourism category at the North American Effie Awards Gala on June 2, 2016, in New York City. Jenny Myers, Vice President of Creative and Executive Creative Director at Drake Cooper, the creative agency behind the campaign, was at the gala to accept the award.
“18 Summers has been an incredibly successful campaign aimed at building awareness of Idaho and increasing engagement and visitation,” says Idaho Commerce Director Megan Ronk. “It is fantastic to see the work of our agency and tourism team recognized by marketing professionals from across North America. It demonstrates that even with a lean operation, we can stand up as one of the top campaigns in the nation.”
The North American Effie Awards honor the most effective marketing efforts of the year. An annual program, the competition attracts case studies from the most effective marketing communications efforts in the United States and Canada. After two rounds of judging, those selected as winners represent cases that best demonstrated how they effectively solved a marketing challenge, connected with their target audience, and achieved the results to show it worked.
“The Effie award is the highest honor a marketing campaign can receive for measuring effectiveness, strategic insight and results,” says John Drake, Chief Strategy Officer at Drake Cooper. “It’s very difficult to win because the caliber of competition is so high—the best brands in North America compete for Effies. So to earn one with our friends and partners at Visit Idaho is simply thrilling and recognizes the hard work and passion that everyone devoted to making this effort succeed.”
The 18 Summers vacation campaign is a “docu-memory” series (https://visitidaho.org/18summers) that features real families sharing stories and experiences from their most precious time together—the summer vacation. The campaign includes an integrated rollout of online and social media and for the first time, running TV spots on regional broadcast stations in surrounding markets.
Idaho is home to thousands of miles of biking trails, mountains to climb, lakes to fish, 18 ski areas and more whitewater than any other state in the lower 48. So take a break from it all and come out to play. Visit www.visitidaho.org for more information and vacation ideas.