In January 2015, Experience Scottsdale embarked on a journey with creative partner STRUCK to research perceptions of Scottsdale, connect with consumers and stakeholders, develop a new brand platform, produce a new advertising campaign, and test the success of the messaging. The result? The new Effortless Revitalization brand and Absolutely Scottsdale ad campaign.
Brand Research & Analysis
January 2015: Experience Scottsdale’s board of directors approved the rebranding initiative with STRUCK. With its research arm, SMARI, STRUCK conducted a brand audit and competitive analysis for Experience Scottsdale, examining Scottsdale’s past brand materials in the process.
February – April 2015: SMARI and STRUCK held focus groups with 50 Scottsdale stakeholders, received 230 online surveys from Scottsdale stakeholders, and hosted focus groups with 80 participants from Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and New York City. They also surveyed more than 1,900 previous and prospective U.S. and Canadian visitors.
Brand Platform & Creative Execution
June 2015: After analyzing the research, STRUCK and Experience Scottsdale outlined Scottsdale’s audience motivators, brand attributes, brand essence, brand positioning statement, personality, messaging and tone.
August 2015: SMARI tested the new brand position and potential logos to see how they resonated with consumers. The agave logo was the overwhelming choice.
October 2015: STRUCK presented three advertising campaign concepts, as well as a brand guide that outlined the colors, fonts, tones, visuals and logos for the new brand.
January 2016: STRUCK presented the objectives and story boards for the chosen Absolutely Scottsdale campaign.
February 2016: Production crews came to Scottsdale to film Experience Scottsdale’s new television commercial and photograph new print ads.
May 2016: With the brand guide, Experience Scottsdale staff designed and produced all new content for ExperienceScottsdale.com.
June 2016: STRUCK and SMARI conducted consumer testing of the leisure print ads and TV commercial. Results were positive.
September 2016: Experience Scottsdale launched its new brand, ad campaign, website and corporate identity for the public.
September 2018: With photography rights from the first ad campaign expiring, Experience Scottsdale created updated ad concepts. These concepts aligned with the creative goals and strategy from the previous ad campaign while updating the imagery.
March 2019: Experience Scottsdale’s selected photographer came to Scottsdale to shoot the new print ads.
October 2019: Experience Scottsdale launched its ad campaign refresh. An updated commercial and destination video were filmed for a spring 2020 release.
