Tourism office preparing flurry of Utah winter ads

The Utah Office of Tourism is primed to launch its winter promotional campaign with a flurry of advertisements, highlighting tourism activities in the state, aimed at folks living outside Utah.

The $1.9 million multiprong advertising campaign will feature ads online, on TV and in print, Leigh von der Esch, managing director of the office, told the Governor's Office of Economic Development at its most recent meeting.

Von der Esch said she's hoping the office gets a similar response to its spring/summer campaign, which shot up the number of phone calls to the office by several-fold in March.

"You'll see these in October, and we hope to have an 800 percent increase in phone calls to our center ..." she said.

The mix of ads, created in cooperation with Salt Lake agency Struck Inc., includes:

• 1,077 spots on cable TV during a four-week period in October, with 35 percent aired during prime time. The ads, designed to create 168 million "impressions," will run on Discovery Channel, A&E, Bravo, CNBC, The Golf Channel, History Channel, National Geographic Channel, TLC and Travel Channel.

The office also has bought spots on five Los Angeles stations, where ads will run for three weeks starting Oct. 8, for 11 million impressions. Fifty-one percent will run in prime time or during the late news.

The ads focus on Utah's "Greatest Snow on Earth" and ski resorts' close proximity to the Salt Lake City International Airport. The TV ads account for nearly $1.7 million of the $1.9 million campaign total.

• A full-color, multipage newspaper insert destined for 1 million households on Oct. 28 in several locations, including Atlanta, Boston, New York, Chicago and several California and Texas cities.

Tourism partners advertising in a similar springtime insert had an average of 3,846 leads from the insert, she said.

• Print ads in magazines through December. The publications include Delta Sky, National Geographic Adventure, Outside Buyer's Guide and Outside Magazine.

• The traditional travel guide, plus "one sheets" featuring information and photos about particular Utah tourism topics.

• Web site ads, including several that are interactive. Ads on Gorp.com, TravelChannel.com, TripAdvisor.com, Weather.com and Yahoo.com are expected to yield 11 million impressions when they run for 10 weeks beginning Oct. 15. In-banner videos will display the new TV ad.