• by Aaron Baar , November 29, 2017

Some destinations may be for the birds, but Lexington, Ky., is proudly for — and about — the horses. 

The destination, branding itself as "the horse capital of the world," is leaning into the designation, betting people can’t travel there without falling into the near-universal behavior of pointing out the equines whenever they drive by. 

“It’s something that’s ingrained in our culture here,” Gathan Borden, vice president of marketing at VisitLEX, tells Marketing Daily. “A lot of Kentucky Derby winners are from here.” The Lexington area is home to more than 400 horse farms, according to the Visitor’s Center website.

In a video posted to the area’s travel and tourism site, sharethelex.com, various tourists are shown traveling in their cars, pointing out their windows and uttering variations on the phrase, “Look, horses.” Kids, parents, and teenagers all point out the horses in awe, and an elderly woman proclaims, “I like horses, but this is ridiculous.” By the end of the spot, even the horses get into the act, with subtitles translating their sounds as “Look. More humans.”

“Once you say, ‘Look, horses,’ once, you’ll say it one hundred times. It’s fantastic, the number of horses and horse farms we have in our area,” Borden says of the approach. The Lexington area is home to more than 400 horse farms, according to the Visitor’s Center website.

The video, which is being seeded on VisitLEX’s web sites and content destination, follows an advertising campaign from earlier this year, in which horses were enlisted to film television spots via mounted cameras. Both efforts are intended to encourage horse lovers (and the horse-curious) to explore the greater Lexington area. 

“Lexington is a place where it behooves you to have a car to take in the places and culture,” Borden says. “It’s something cool to get people to want to drive in and see for themselves.”