“From zero to 100 in just a few short months.”
How do you create a brand collective for five unique destinations — each with its own offerings for boutique meetings, incentive trips, retreats and conferences — from scratch to launching a meetings marketing campaign in about six months?
Here’s the story.
Armed with a $275,000 grant from Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, Digital Edge set out to create a unified brand, launch a meetings marketing campaign and bring five organizations together under one umbrella — all within a tight timeline.
1000 Islands | Chautauqua & Lake Erie |
Cooperstown | Finger Lakes/Ontario County | Watkins Glen
In response to the post-pandemic shift toward more intentional gatherings, often in outdoor spaces, these five regions of New York State partnered with Digital Edge to create a cohesive meetings-focused presence showcasing their perfect blend of accessible seclusion, waterfront activities, rural refinement and outdoor splendor for corporate and incentive travel.
Before any campaign could be launched, Digital Edge and the collective meeting destinations began to develop a brand identity, spanning hours of brainstorming, ideation, mood board creation, writing, designing and meeting.
Create regional interest
Showcase the offerings
of these more quaint waterfront settings to targeted meeting planners and decision-makers
Grow opportunities
for small market meetings, incentive travel & retreat-style conferences
Our North Star: water. It’s what the destinations could all hang their hat on. Beautiful lakes. Serene rivers. But it’s so much more. Thus, the name of this fresh brand collective evolved to encapsulate the connection to nature that their unique meeting spots open the door to. And so The Waterfronts was born.
The Waterfronts of NY State
Destination Meetings, Refreshed
1000 Islands
Where Small Meetings Turn Into Big Experiences
Chautauqua & Lake Erie
Play, Laugh & Learn
Cooperstown
America’s Most Perfect Village
Finger Lakes/Ontario County
Laidback Luxury, Lakefront Hotels & More
Watkins Glen
Racing Excitement Meets Natural Splendor
Digital Edge Senior Interactive Media Designer Billy Kelley has ties to all five destinations of New York’s Waterfronts — which he credits to helping him represent the area authentically and shaping a brand that feels true as a whole and to each region.
His design of The Waterfronts logo steps away from a city-centric look, instead focusing on the serene beauty of the five Waterfronts destinations. The logo incorporates wave motifs, representing a sense of movement. The colorway was formed to invoke feelings of laidback luxury. The soft blues invoke a feeling of relaxation and retreat while simultaneously indicating professionalism due to their tried and true representation in the business world. The blues were married with a soothing forest green and an earthy beige to represent both water and the surrounding land — just like a waterfront.
As the brand creative and messaging took shape, development began on the supplementary campaign content — including an interactive microsite — to evolve the storyline of meetings in this region of NY. The focused website was designed to invite users to explore the different destination brands with ease — under one roof — encouraging RFP submissions and funneling traffic to the destinations’ respective websites to bring users not at the conversion stage further down the funnel.
These internal pages have subtle hints of their own tones and characteristics based on their current websites while providing straightforward venue specs and experiential offerings.
Through vivid imagery and intriguing content built around the interest of the audiences, we created a memorable campaign finely tuned for the experience of the target audience — small meeting and conference, incentive travel and leadership retreat planners and decision-makers in the regional drive-in market.
The campaign’s marketing plan aimed to fill voids between October and May with the group segment, highlighting the destinations’ rich variety of year-round assets that can be integrated into agendas — from wellness to exploration of places previously lesser known.
