Case Study: Lifting NYC Arrivals

Travel Agency-Turned-Escape Room Themed Popup Gives New Yorkers the
Ultimate Virginia Beach Experience; Lifts New York Arrivals

The Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) Marketing Communications team was tasked with shifting
perceptions and raising awareness of the destination among media and consumers in the key market of New York City,
particularly with Gen X and millennial families. Within FY18 media plans, out of home mural space was purchased with
Colossal media in April 2018 in the trending residential neighborhood of Williamsburg. The in-house team knew that to
ensure cohesion an experiential activation would drive the creative for the mural. The team landed on producing an
escape room for the experiential piece, which would allow consumers to have an immersive experience and learn about
the Virginia Beach of today.

To generate buzz in advance, the creative concept for the mural utilized UV painting at night that revealed the words
Virginia Beach, and soon after, the storefront, called Virgil A. Peach popped up at a location near the mural. Media
outreach about the experiential activation included press release distribution on PRNewswire, widespread outreach to
1,000+ media contacts, personalized outreach (email and direct mail) to select top-tier outlets, Twitter engagement and
support from Virginia Tourism Corporation’s PR team to supplement our efforts. Additionally, the CVB leveraged the
activation to invite media to a preview event and 240 locals scheduled and completed the escape room experience to
generate word-of-mouth buzz.

Measuring Success:
Results of the outreach and activation included 81 million press release impressions generated from 257 media
placements, 295K people reached via social media, eight percent increase in organic traffic from the previous month to
VisitVirginiaBeach.com from the New York DMA and follow-up press visits. 2018 overnight visitor profile survey data from
Longwoods International indicated lift in New York DMA arrivals up from 7.7% to 8.3% year over year.