Case Study: Look Book Innovation

LEAN Principles Applied to Marketing Efforts Lead to Innovative Ideas

Marketing initiatives can contribute significantly to an organization’s innovation strategy. Innovation activities for marketing
can include testing new ideas, engaging stakeholders in new ways, developing new solutions based on digital
technologies and rethinking an organization’s approach to partnerships. The following example shows how creating a
culture of innovation on a team can lead to cost savings and efficiencies.

In 2017, the Virginia Beach CVB Marketing Communications content/PR team evolved the vacation guide to a 144 page, visuals-first collateral lookbook to showcase the many districts and lifestyle activities the destination had to offer. The content piece was used as a proactive direct-mail item for media, travel writers, tour operators, consumers and meeting planners rather than simply a traditional reactive fulfillment piece through the visitor center. Content was consistent with media pitching efforts, paid media and online blog articles to ensure an integrated, omni-channel approach to strategic storytelling. Consumers could request or download a guide online; additionally, they could pick one up at visitor centers across the state.

In light of looming budget cuts, visitor center staff expressed concerns about postage costs and asked that the marketing team cut the content to help with their budget. Additionally, the recently regulated AirBnB community was not represented in the piece but were paying bed tax just like hotels. The visitor center was also mailing the hotel association’s brochure of hotels with the lookbook, so consumers were getting the same listing information twice in one mailing.

Using six sigma principles, team leadership looked at several items before making a recommendation. First, understanding the value to the customer was critical. The CVB conducted a qualitative testing study of creative and content utilizing three virtual community groups and three target audience types to understand relative strengths, weakness and believability of the current creative and content to targeted visitors. Results revealed lookbook favorability over paid media efforts, including out of home and print ads, to lift appeal and consideration of a trip to Virginia Beach.

Second, the CVB mapped the process to identify decision points, waste areas and workflow from creation to distribution.
Through Toggl time tracking software, management could quickly see that the piece took 264 hours of marketing staff
time to create, valued at $7,800. The visitor center was direct calling hotels to verify listing information. Boxes were being
mailed via UPS to individual visitor centers instead of a distribution warehouse. Total hard and soft costs reached over
$282,000.

Using a new, integrated department-wide data dashboard, findings also showed that digital downloads of the piece on the
website accounted for less than three percent of total web traffic. Requests for the item via walk-in traffic were down 36%
year over year. Inquiries to the visitor center about accommodations ranked 9th in the top 12 inquiries by category,
demonstrating that other needs had higher priority. Finally, overnight visitor data showed that less than 8% of visitors were
arriving without plans. Consumer travel planning behavior was evolving.

Measuring Success:
Without sacrificing content for the consumer, the marketing team was able to identify cost savings in quantity, paper
weight, reducing pages by possibly eliminating accommodation listings entirely and driving consumers to the website to
learn more about lodging. This would also eliminate the inefficiency of consumers receiving the same listings twice in one
mailing and allow for promotion of short term rental options. Resizing the piece would also increase the number of books
per box for shipment. The team also identified further cost savings by negotiating free transportation by the printer to the
state’s visitor center distribution center. Visitor center staff could utilize existing technology on-site to print or email custom
lodging reports to meet specific inquiry needs, or the marketing team could print a separate insert at a much lower
quantity as an option for consumers looking for a printed copy. Potential cost savings totaled more than $2.7 million over 10 years.

As conversation continues about the future of vacation guides in general, the marketing staff is encouraged to explore
new approaches to ideas, problems and solutions to help the organization meet goals.