#1 Brand Activation Agency | Engage Audiences & Drive ROI
The Ocean City Department of Tourism & Business Development is an organization centered around boosting the city’s tourism engagement, both domestically and internationally. They do so by providing traveler resources and information, building partnerships with local businesses, and developing marketing campaigns that promote the city.
In 2022, Ocean City, Maryland officially launched its “Somewhere to Smile About” tourism campaign, complete with a new smiley face logo. This ongoing campaign uses social media, digital platforms, and events to highlight Ocean City’s fun and carefree lifestyle.
One such event was the Ocean City, Maryland Tourism experiential marketing activation in this case study, which combined custom keychains and digital sweepstakes for an unforgettable experience.
The tourism industry is highly competitive. Every day, consumers are bombarded with advertising, social media posts, and other messaging about destinations all over the globe. This sheer volume of travel content makes it difficult for a single campaign to capture attention.
Campaign managers are also faced with a slew of challenges in creating effective content. Paid advertising is costly. Travel trends evolve, making it hard to keep up with shifting consumer preferences. And let’s not even get started on the decline of organic reach on social media.
Ocean City, Maryland Tourism needed an experiential marketing activation that would break through the noise and appeal to potential visitors.
To bring a little sunshine to every stop, Maryland Tourism and MoZeus launched a vibrant, high-volume activation featuring personalized license plate keychains. Visitors selected their favorite design, entered a sweepstakes, and walked away with a custom-printed souvenir printed in real time on-site.
Ocean City, Maryland Tourism Experiential Marketing Case Study Highlights:
This cheerful experiential marketing experience for Ocean City, Maryland was part souvenir station, part CRM powerhouse, proving that even the smallest takeaways can deliver the biggest smiles.
Ocean City’s Catch a Ride activation was one fun ride for visitors of all ages. With a custom keychain-making station and an interactive sweepstakes, this playful experience served as a reminder that “Somewhere to Smile About” was a short summer road trip away in Ocean City, Maryland.
The Ocean City, Maryland experiential marketing activation garnered 176 million media impressions, 7 unique placements, and an earned media value of $1.6 million. But most importantly, it appealed to those who mattered most: local travelers. Thousands of Mid-Atlantic residents stopped by to join in on the fun and the opportunity to “Catch a Ride” to Ocean City and win other prizes.
This tourism engagement activation also allowed for effortless first-party digital data capture, including emails and phone numbers.
According to Tom Perlozzo, the Director of Tourism and Business Development for Ocean City Maryland Tourism, the goal of Catch a Ride was to introduce their “refreshed brand with a carefree, playful activation that [gave] their neighbors in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. the extra nudge they need to pack up their car and plan a road trip to visit [Ocean City].”
Maximizing tourism engagement called for an attention-grabbing combo of customer activation solutions from MoZeus, immersing visitors in a memorable, hands-on experience. Solutions outlined in this Ocean City Maryland Tourism experiential marketing case study include:
Struggling to engage consumers? Attract consumers and give them an experience that they’ll actually enjoy with MoZeus. Our brand activation agency specializes in scalable (and FUN) digital engagement technologies that allow you to connect with your audience and create measurable results.