Touting Telluride: ad campaign emphasizes digital media and 'micro-targeting' potential guests.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: TOUTING REPORT

"MY MANTRA. HAS ALWAYS been marketing is art and science," says Michael Martelon, president and CEO of the Telluride Tourism Board. "Without the science, the art is aimless. It might be captivating, but it's aimless."

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Martelon came to Telluride last year after two decades in advertising on the East Coast, and quickly brought in IXI Corp., a McLean, Va.-based provider of consumer databases that counts the country's largest banks among its customers. Martel= was able to get buy-in from the lodgings in the area to share their data for the greater good.

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The challenges (the remote location and extreme seasonality) for Telluride haven't changed, but the approach to clearing these hurdles most definitely has. To plot this pirouette fir their 2012 summer ad campaign, Martelon and company plugged the demographics of Telluride visitors into [X]. consumer databases that separate the U.S. population into 71 categories. "We are able to understand who our guests are and why they are coming here," he explains. " we end up seeing where we should be putting our message. The data basically drives every decision."

Case in point: Last summer, nearly two-thirds of the Telluride Tourism Board's advertising budget was dedicated to print publications, resulting in about 20 million impressions. This summer, Martelon anticipates nearly 40 million impressions by funneling 85 percent of the ad-Spend into digital media ranging from Pandora digital radio to newspaper websites in target markets. The only offline advertising is going into the local and Colorado 'Tourism Office's visitor guide and display ads at Denver International Airport and on the gondola to the base area of Telluride Ski Resort in adjacent Mountain Village.

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"In previous years. we put 60 percent of our budget into print." he says. "This year. 10 percent will he going into print." He says the decision was driven by "less waste" in digital media in terms of targeted advertising.

"We have an opportunity to miero-target as a destination," says Mat-Rion. citing an example of "champagne taste empty nesters" a demographic group that represents just 0.3 percent of the population but is 12 times more likely to Visit Telluride than the average person, "That's how granular this gets,"

Telluride's message has traditionally been more "ethereal" and its target less concrete. saYs Nlarlelon. "Tulluride was putting a lot 01 eggs in the brand image...