'Fun is...' campaign a success in Portland

Fun is… tapping into an undiscovered

market.

Whitefish Mountain Resort and the

Whitefish Convention and Visitor Bureau (WCVB) teamed up this past

winter to run a test marketing campaign in Portland, Ore. The

results were substantially increased visitor traffic at both the

ski resort and in town.

Nick Polumbus, marketing director at

Big Mountain and WCVB committee member, reports a 300 percent

increase in lodging reservations out of Portland from the start of

the campaign to the end. By the beginning of February, when the

campaign peaked, they reported 43 reservations from Portland for

171 total nights.

“Portland lines up well with the

product we offer,” Polumbus said. “The people of Portland tend to

be seeking the experience we have.”

Jan Metzmaker, director at the WCVB,

agreed. She noted that the things people in Portland enjoy —

outdoor recreation, good coffee, micro brews — Whitefish offers.

She said the WCVB gauges the success of their marketing on resort

tax revenue, which is up over last year.

“Overall collection is up and Portland

visitors helped,” Metzmaker said.

The marketing campaign was crafted

around the website www.funiswhitefish.com which features a splash

page posing the open-ended question “Fun is…” Visitors can link to

information about the ski resort or town from the site.

Using that idea, 10 billboards were

placed at all corners of Portland, while print and online ads were

placed in the Oregonian newspaper and Portland Monthly

magazine.

Polumbus reports that the billboards

were seen by about 200,000 people every day and the total campaign

made about six million impressions.

“We used a road-blocking strategy,”

Polumbus said. “You couldn’t get into downtown Portland without

seeing one of these billboards.”

Both Polumbus and Metzmaker said that

the Amtrak service from Portland to Whitefish played a part in the

success of the campaign. The passenger train from Portland hooks up

in Spokane with cars coming from Seattle.

There are no direct flights from

Portland to Glacier Park International airport, however, which

could be a hurdle for future market growth. Currently, Oregon is a

top-10 visiting state to Big Mountain, while Washington and

Minnesota represent the top out-of-state visitors to Whitefish.

There are direct flights and Amtrak service from both Seattle and

Minneapolis.

While this year was only a test,

Polumbus expects both the resort and WCVB will further tap into the

Portland market next winter.

“I’ve never been a part of a coop

campaign that worked so well,” Polumbus said. “We’ll definitely do

it again.”

WCVB’s 2012 marketing plan shows Las

Vegas and Los Angeles as possible emerging markets, too.