Amelia Island CVB Inspiring Visitors to Meet Together & Feel a World Away

As business operations and travel slowly re-emerged in 2021, meeting planners began reshuffling, replanning and rebooking canceled 2020 events. It was the right time for the Amelia Island CVB (AICVB) to communicate its wide-open, welcoming spaces and ideal event settings, while driving brand awareness and RFP submissions.

Wide-Open Inspiration

As the Starmark team toured the destination and met hoteliers and other stakeholders, it was clear what made this place so special and why meeting planners would want to take advantage of everything the island had to offer. Let’s just say we left the island feeling “inspired.”

The team created a mobile campaign using the theme line, “Island Inspired Meetings”. Based upon key target audience concerns, we focused on open areas and flexible spaces for smaller and larger groups – emphasizing island uniqueness, charm and superior service. Clever headlines, island settings and common meeting vernacular all showcased a place where groups could safely and conveniently convene, yet still feel a world away.

Mobilizing Amelia Island’s Unique Charms

In-feed videos, story ads and an Instant Experience ad all brought Amelia Island’s charms right to meeting planners’ mobile devices. Starmark targeted social platform audiences by industry-related job titles and those expressing interest in meeting & convention planning.

The Instant Experience ad launched a fully-immersive, digital brochure-style mobile experience, engaging audiences with rich storytelling and fast-loading elements.

All campaign assets drove to AmeliaIsland.com/meetings, which housed a new video developed and produced by Starmark. Shorter versions of the video were also created to support social media.

A themed brochure was created as an informational guide for planners to peruse all the benefits of a meeting on Amelia Island. Glossy photos that showcased scenic event locations, unique venues and downtime activities led the storytelling, taking planners through a picture-perfect event scenario.

On the Island, Off the Charts

• Video views on LinkedIn garnered an 88% view rate, 4x higher than LinkedIn’s benchmarks
• Average Facebook view time was :15 seconds
• Users spent an average of 22 seconds engaging with the Instant Experience ad, which also had an average view rate of 70%
• Overall social numbers achieved on Facebook and LinkedIn:
  • Clicks: 13,276
  • Impressions: 614,167
  • CTR: 2.69%, 3x higher than industry average
• Nearly 150 new RFPs received
• Brochure: 40,000+ distribution and pass-along value as a resource planning guide

Adding Even More Success to the Agenda

With numbers that succeeded expectations, meeting planners were indeed “Island Inspired” to book. So were awards show judges. The Amelia Island Meetings Campaign brought home several industry accolades, including top honors at the Visit Florida Governor’s Conference.