The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau has launched an unprecedented new destination brand initiative to serve as a warm welcome and visitor invitation to the international travel community. The campaign, which includes a new brand video and comprehensive digital marketing strategy, launched on United Nation’s World Tourism Day, a day that celebrates the importance of tourism and its cultural, political and economic values.
The #greatertogether video is an expression of Greater Fort Lauderdale’s open-door/open heart philosophy for visitors in times of travel bans and safety concerns. “In Broward County, we are making sure that we let the traveling public understand that we are a welcoming destination to all people across the world regardless of the color of their skin, whom they choose to love or what religion they believe in. We want to make sure that our message gets through despite the negative clutter they see on their nightly news, every day,” said Stacy Ritter, President/CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Central to the initiative is a 1:45 minute video that draws the viewer’s attention to a story that plays out in a sunrise-to-sunset destination experience with people of different ethnic backgrounds. It opens with an iconic visual of yoga on the beach and continues with a portrayal of diverse activities and visitors, including two Muslim women wearing hijabs enjoying a cup of coffee together with a non-Muslim friend, millennials of mixed nationalities at play, LGBTQI couples and friends in warm embraces, members of the indigenous Seminole tribe, a not-so-mythical mermaid, local African-American street art and ending with a reveal of a human thumbprint and a welcome message in multiple languages. The video will serve to foster resident’s continued pride in community and let the world know that in Greater Fort Lauderdale, everyone is welcome…every day.
An international marketing campaign will launch the #greatertogether video to consumers and international tour operators. The video will be featured on the CVB’s website (www.sunny.org/greatertogether) including the stories of diverse residents and visitors describing why they enjoy living in Greater Fort Lauderdale and how they welcome visitors to the community. The “Faces” social media component of the program will include key local residents that were featured in the video and communicate diversity of the destination and how proud they are of the community that they live in.
The #greatertogether video will be featured on Greater Fort Lauderdale’s 24/7 streaming, multi-platform network, Hello Sunny TV and at prominent trade shows and conferences. The initiative will also include a digital distribution strategy through social media platforms, as well as international tour operator programs including Travel Audience, Travel Port, Tourico Holidays, LMT Club and Hotelopia. Marking efforts will be directed to audiences in the U.S. and Canada, the U.K., Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, France, Brazil, Colombia, Dubai, India/Sri Lanka, and other international markets with airline service to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Created by Starmark International, the CVB’s advertising agency, and produced by Diamond View, the video design conveys a strong human message: “A thumbprint symbolizes unity. No matter where you come from or what you look like, it represents the universal truth that people are one in the same. We are all human beings,” said Stacy Ritter, President/CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The 1.8 million population of the Broward County/Greater Fort Lauderdale area, that celebrated its centennial in 2015, can easily justify its claim of being a progressive international visitor region. It is the most diverse county in the state of Florida with 32 percent of residents being foreign born. It also has one of the largest concentrations of LGBTQIhouseholds in the nation, with more than one million LGBTQI visitors annually.
SOURCE Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau
