Campaign Stats:
Campaign Length: 9 months
Ad Impressions: 6.3 million
Hashtag Generation: #BecauseBentonville tagged 6,215 times
Recruits to Bentonville: 10
Campaign Tactics:
Website Building
Copywriting
Native Advertising
Video Creation
Experiential Marketing
Guerilla Marketing
Summary
The #BecauseBentonville integrated marketing campaign began as a dream to highlight a city. Its goal: to bring business leaders from across the country to Northwest Arkansas and show them what life is like in Bentonville.
The campaign was multifaceted, pulling on wide-ranging strategies utilizing native advertising, video, content creation, copywriting, social media outreach, and true experiential marketing. The tactics were incredibly diverse, ranging from blog writing to social media ad buys, the creation of a 360-degree video, the dissemination of a “Gift From OZ,” and guerilla marketing tactics encouraging the use of the hashtag throughout Bentonville.
4media group consulted with our in-house research division, Atomik Research, and took a different approach: direct outreach. Through the use of tools on LinkedIn and other social platforms, we undertook intense online research to build interest profiles around some of the nation’s top business people—ultimately extending 50 invitations to visit Bentonville.
One of Bentonville’s greatest strengths lies in the city’s incredible and expansive access to nature. World-class mountain biking is propped up by a paved regional trail system making the entire city accessible to the modern cyclist.
Our outreach intentionally targeted mountain bikers, with the goal of inviting them to Bentonville for the nation’s premier bike demo event, called Outerbike.
To that end, 4media group designed a Gift From OZ, to serve as an invitation to the city. Packaged in a custom-designed box from our in-house design team, the Gift From OZ had a little something representing each facet of Bentonville.
To expand the message, 4media group ran a series of interest-targeted native advertisements across Facebook and Instagram, and also made use of Outbrain to amplify written blog content and community profiles.
The native ad campaign garnered over 6 million impressions, but also showed the immense value in building consumer profiles and engaging in direct interest targeting, where Facebook and Instagram ads proved so appealing that several individuals reached out to us—they actually requested an invitation.
Results
The results of the campaign were far reaching. The success of the native advertising campaigns garnered 4media group several additional clients who were related to the activation, and one piece of collateral that was designed is being used, to this day, as a recruiting tool for the nation’s largest retailer.
The event ultimately produced several brand ambassadors for Bentonville, and allowed 4media group the opportunity to engage in a dynamic, long-running and fully-integrated marketing campaign across the span of nearly an entire year.