Unveiling a New Brand and Marketing Campaign with the Duluth Tourism Collaborative

It’s been just over three months since we kicked off work to pro­mote tourism to Duluth, and ear­li­er this week we had the plea­sure of debut­ing the new brand and mar­ket­ing cam­paign to more than 100 indus­try mem­bers and city lead­ers in Duluth. This debut was the ear­ly cul­mi­na­tion of our work with our part­ners at Lawrence & Schiller, along with oth­er ded­i­cat­ed part­ners and enti­ties in the Duluth Tourism Col­lab­o­ra­tive – empha­sis on col­lab­o­ra­tive!

Com­prised of the City of Duluth, the new­ly recon­fig­ured Vis­it Duluth and the Duluth Enter­tain­ment Con­ven­tion Cen­ter (DECC), in part­ner­ship with Bell­mont Part­ners and Lawrence & Schiller, the Duluth Tourism Col­lab­o­ra­tive rep­re­sents a new mod­el for the city’s tourism mar­ket­ing. In addi­tion to get­ting to pro­mote trav­el to one of our favorite des­ti­na­tions and open­ing a new Bell­mont Part­ners office in Duluth, we’ve also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to put our strengths to work in a unique col­lec­tive that’s dri­ving tourism in Duluth. The debut gar­nered much atten­tion from the local tourism indus­try and com­mu­ni­ty, with more than 60 media sto­ries from across the region, includ­ing this piece from KARE 11.

Love It Like We Do

Indus­try trends show many trav­el­ers want to expe­ri­ence des­ti­na­tions like locals, immers­ing them­selves in a destination’s unique offer­ings, cre­at­ing a more authen­tic con­nec­tion. This sen­ti­ment, com­bined with a desire to show­case local pride, inspired Duluth’s new tourism mar­ket­ing cam­paign, “Love It Like We Do.” Debut­ing in key tar­get mar­kets iden­ti­fied through an in-depth research analy­sis, the cam­paign fea­tures a new logo, pho­tog­ra­phy, videog­ra­phy, and a paid media strat­e­gy to inspire trav­el to Duluth.

The new cam­paign offi­cial­ly launched at the end of March with the roll­out of a series of video, audio, out-of-home (includ­ing dig­i­tal bill­boards and gas sta­tion TV), print, dig­i­tal and social ads in the Twin Cities, Fargo/Moorhead, Rochester, La Crosse/Eau Claire and Wausau mar­kets, along with oth­er key areas with­in a 400-mile radius of Duluth.

Ele­ments of the new mar­ket­ing cam­paign can also be seen on VisitDuluth.com and the Vis­it Duluth social media chan­nels, in addi­tion to ongo­ing media rela­tions and new con­tent cre­at­ed since the begin­ning of the year. The new cam­paign and brand­ing will be incor­po­rat­ed into all future media rela­tions, dig­i­tal con­tent and paid media. and in phys­i­cal loca­tions such as the new Vis­it Duluth Visitor’s Cen­ter in Canal Park, open­ing at the end April.

The Peo­ple, The Pace, The Place

By high­light­ing some of Duluth’s off-the-beat­en-path attrac­tions, notable land­marks, and out­door adven­tures, the cam­paign aims to not only bring new trav­el­ers to Duluth, but to encour­age them to stay longer, expe­ri­enc­ing even more of the city’s unique dis­tricts. The cam­paign fea­tures pho­tog­ra­phy from and of real Duluthi­ans and trav­el­ers, cap­tur­ing the peo­ple, the pace and the place of the city.

These themes inspired the new logo, which is designed to be more inclu­sive, mod­ern, bold and unex­pect­ed, and gives a nod to the north through incor­po­rat­ing a north­ern star, align­ing with the new City of Duluth flag. The ‘Supe­ri­or Blue’ and ‘North Star Gold’ col­ors and addi­tion­al sec­ondary palette of greens, pur­ples and earth tones used in the cam­paign are based on actu­al col­ors found through­out Duluth.

As Duluth May­or Emi­ly Lar­son puts it, “This new cam­paign speaks to our pride of place, why we love Duluth and why we think oth­ers will, too. This new look feels both dra­mat­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent and very famil­iar and I am excit­ed for vis­i­tors to dis­cov­er it, and dis­cov­er us.”

We’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing in part­ner­ship with the rest of the Duluth Tourism Col­lab­o­ra­tive in even more new and inno­v­a­tive ways to dri­ve vis­i­tors to Duluth.