Sunshine Matters

Today, VISIT FLORIDA announced the launch of our integrated digital “Sunshine Moments” summer marketing campaign.  The campaign’s media plan focuses on reaching families through highly-targeted digital advertising buys on Facebook, AOL, Yahoo and several other key social media sites.  The $1.1 million, five-week social media-driven campaign is expected to result in more than 315 million online impressions.  The announcement was made during a satellite media tour held in St. Petersburg, which included nearly 30 media outlets from around the country.

This is a digital campaign that is 100 percent focused on tapping into generations worth of Florida family vacations to remind travelers that Florida is the No. 1 family summer vacation destination in the world.  Our goal is to keep Florida a top-of-mind destination for millions of people deciding where to spend their summer vacation this year by reaching out to them in the digital arena.

The campaign has two key components.  Sunshine Moments targets family decision makers on Facebook who are most likely to plan a Florida vacation.  The call to action for the campaign is a sweepstakes promotion encouraging visitors to upload their favorite Florida vacation images.  The resulting photo gallery will be displayed on VISIT FLORIDA’s Facebook page, where followers can vote for their favorite photo, determining one grand prize winner who will receive a Florida vacation, a Mazda CX-7 and a Kodak PlayTouch video camera.

A second component of the Sunshine Moments campaign is an ad buy across eight targeted websites, including Yahoo, AOL, iVillage and Parents.com, that will reach family decision makers in an online environment where they are actively seeking information about parenting, family activities and travel.  The call to action for this component is VISITFLORIDA.com, the state’s official source for travel planning and the No. 1 trafficked state destination marketing organization website in the country.  Visitors to the website are greeted by Florida “Insiders” offering tips, videos, blog posts, Twitter feeds, fishing reports, interactive maps and a host of other useful travel planning content.  This same rich content is available in a mobile version, accessible directly from smart phones and other mobile devices without needing to download an app.

Everyone has a favorite Florida memory, and this campaign reinforces those great times with an invitation to families to create new Sunshine State vacation memories this summer.  Using a digital only approach is a first for VISIT FLORIDA and, by teaming up with organizations like Facebook, we expect big results for everyone involved in the campaign.