Utah tourism board is thinking spring — ads

The temperatures outside hovered in the 20s, but the Utah Board of Tourism Development on Friday was thinking about spring and summer.

The board approved a framework for its spring and summer media buys to get the word out about Utah's charms to potential tourists living outside the state and entice them to visit Utah.

Most of the ads would be run on television, but the $3.2 million campaign also would feature print ads and national interactive ads.

Thomas Cooke, account director at Struck, an agency hired to help the Utah Office of Tourism with its campaigns, said the campaign is expected to produce more than 200 million "impressions" with viewers and readers, above the 165 million in last year's campaign.

The ads would be on cable TV nationally — several channels are being considered — as well as local "spot" ads in Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix. The first year for the local spots was in 2006 when Los Angeles, Denver and Las Vegas viewers saw Utah ads. This year's campaign included local spots in Los Angeles and Denver.

Ads would run from mid-March to mid-June and target people ages 35 to 54 with household incomes of $75,000 or more.

Cooke said that TV provides the best awareness and the longest-lasting effect among ad options. Awareness of Utah ads peaked this year in mid-July, a month

after the final TV spot ran.

Among the changes this year are adding Phoenix for the local TV spots and having national cable ads of 30 seconds rather than 60 seconds.

Phoenix was added, according to Cooke, because research indicates visits to Utah from there have been steady the past three years and that Phoenix is one of the top five markets for Utah visitors and the top 10 for per-party trip spending in the state.

Cooke added, "It's important to point out that the national component of the campaign gets the East Coast. When you take Denver, L.A. and Phoenix and you add the gross rating points that are coming into cable plus the spots, that's a lot of media in those concentrations and a lot nationwide, as well."

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com