• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 9, 2022

Direct Digital Holdings on Wednesday announced that Orange142, the company’s buy-side advertising platform, has once again been named digital agency of record for the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism.

The latest five-year agreement builds on Orange142’s nearly 25-year relationship with Pigeon Forge, a town in Tennessee. The town of 7,000 residents saw an economic impact of more than $2 billion from tourism in 2021, marking a 100% increase in Pigeon Forge’s overall tourism tax base during the past five years.

“With each digital advertising campaign, we capture front-end key performance metrics such as impressions, clicks, video views, conversions with backend performance once on site to ensure we're not only delivering website traffic but quality website traffic,” said Ross Ramon, President and CEO of Orange142. “All data points are used to refine geographic and demographic audience targeting in real-time.”

This data is shared with the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism and is used to validate additional first-party research conducted by the tourism department annually. Orange142 also now includes foot-traffic attribution to provide projected Return-On-Investment from its programs as well as more data insight on guests to local businesses, Ramon said.

The plan for the next five years is to drive incremental growth in the region’s new visitor, party size, party spend and length-of-stay, as well as targeted initiatives to increase tourism from key markets including Chicago, Washington DC, Indianapolis and Tampa Bay.

Orange142 provides digital services to the tourism board, such as media negotiation, buying, and monitoring, website development and maintenance, social media management, CRM management, strategic planning, software management and reporting, and analytics.

Beyond the technical capabilities, Orange142 invests in building relationships the Tourism Advisory Board and local businesses to ensure all sectors are represented.

During the 25-year relationship, Orange142 has helped evolve the town into a year-round destination getaway with unique offerings for visitors, Ramon said.

“This approach means that the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism is always in market with destination messaging to capture visitors during travel planning periods,” he said. “We are in market with a lead generation promotion to build up the DOT’s Travel Planner and eNews database. This program runs annually and supplements the seasonal campaigns focused on spring, summer, late summer, fall and holiday travel.”

He said that research studies conducted in cooperation with the PFDOT have shown travelers are 80% more likely to visit Pigeon Forge after requesting a Travel Planner, making this smaller initiative vital for the city. A travel planner and spring media campaigns now run that target 18 key markets.

The most recent campaign ran during the 2021 holidays. It highlighted the city’s Winterfest season, targeting families and couples for holiday travel. Messaging showcased the depth and breadth of activities in Pigeon Forge, he said, while giving the destination a sense of holiday spirit in the Smoky Mountains.

Campaign performance highlights included 25.6 million impressions; 186,000 clicks; 1.1 million video views; 0.73% click-through rate; and foot traffic attribution estimates for a conversion rate of 1.30% of those served impressions visited during Winterfest.