Nebraska’s tourism slogan is ‘not for everyone,’ but commission calls it a success

Nebraska’s present tourism slogan landed with a splash in 2018, stirring a robust social media response and producing press protection on a number of nationwide platforms, from The Washington Put up to “The Late Present with Stephen Colbert.”

The nationwide award-winning slogan — “Nebraska. Actually, it’s not for everybody” — continues to evoke reward and criticism, with even just a few Republican gubernatorial candidates calling for a change. However with a busy summer season journey season formally underway, Nebraska’s tourism chief says the state does not plan to shed the putting slogan any time quickly.

John Ricks, govt director of the Nebraska Tourism Fee, considers the marketing campaign successful and cites tourism metrics and state rankings to make his case.

A number of Omaha trade professionals, although, are nonetheless not sure concerning the message and say that figuring out “success” requires extra nuance.

In its analysis, Ricks stated, the fee had discovered that Nebraska “wasn’t even on individuals’s purchasing checklist as a possible trip vacation spot.” It discovered indifference, apathy — troublesome beasts to battle within the promoting world.

“You need to do one thing surprising to get individuals’s consideration, to even get of their consideration set,” he stated. “So, that is what we did.”

Obstacles to individuals visiting have been deeply entrenched, he stated. The fee discovered individuals wouldn’t even take the time to analysis Nebraska. There have been perceptions that the state was all dusty plains, flat and boring, flyover nation.

The marketing campaign fed these assumptions again to individuals, Ricks stated, then instructed them the actual story.

One advert from the tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign exhibits individuals floating a stream in livestock tanks with the phrases “Fortunate for you, there’s nothing to do right here.” One other exhibits hikers leaping throughout a rock formation: “Well-known for our flat, boring panorama.”

The fee moved promoting out of the state, Ricks stated, to draw vacationers who have a tendency to remain longer, spend extra and herald new cash. For in-state journey, the fee is extra centered on the state’s profitable Nebraska Passport program.

“When this hit, we by some means related with individuals,” Ricks stated. “And we’re joking now that … we’re discovering that there are much more ‘not everyones’ on the market than we thought.”

Tourism is a $3.6 billion trade in Nebraska, he stated, that generates nearly $265 million in state and native taxes.

Analyzing journey information from the previous few years could be difficult, with the continued COVID-19 pandemic upending the trade in 2020. However Ricks supplied some statistics that he stated point out success.

Net site visitors on the state’s tourism web site, visitNebraska.com, elevated from about 371,000 guests in 2017 to about 918,000 in 2021.

12 months-to-year adjustments in customer spending had been modest annually between 2012 and 2017 (starting from a 1.3% lower to a 3.5% enhance). In 2018, spending went up by 5.5%. It elevated once more, by 4.6%, in 2019 earlier than plummeting 40% in 2020. It recovered, after which some, in 2021, growing by 68%.

When individuals began trekking out after locking down early in the pandemic, Ricks stated they’d go of their automobiles to see less-populated locations which are outdoorsy, less-traveled and reasonably priced.

“That’s only a description of Nebraska,” he stated.

He expects there’s nonetheless pent-up demand that drove among the success in 2021. However not each state bought again to the place they have been in 2019, he stated. Nebraska did.

One other metric: Nebraska’s rating on MMGY World’s “Portrait of American Vacationers” improved this spring, inserting it amongst eight states that had a statistically vital enhance over 2021.

Chris Davidson, govt vp of MMGY Journey Intelligence, stated the corporate has revealed its in-depth report for greater than three many years. It surveys roughly 4,500 adults about their journey habits. In 2021, it modified to a quarterly schedule. 

One query it asks of “lively leisure vacationers” every survey facilities round their curiosity in visiting every of the 50 states and Puerto Rico, together with different particular locations. That information is used for the rankings Ricks cited.

Nebraska has historically been within the backside 5, Davidson stated.

Nebraska ranked forty fifth in spring 2019, tied with Arkansas and Oklahoma, however solely 17% of individuals surveyed have been considerably or extraordinarily considering visiting. MMGY didn’t publish a report in 2020.

In spring 2021, 21% of individuals have been considerably or extraordinarily considering visiting Nebraska within the subsequent two years and it ranked forty eighth. In its most up-to-date report, spring 2022, that quantity rose to 25% and Nebraska ranked forty fifth.

Simply individuals who have been extraordinarily went from 5% in 2019 to 9% in 2022. The share of people that weren’t in any respect was 41% in 2019 and dropped to 36% in 2022. The state’s common rating went from 2.2 on a five-point scale to 2.4 — a few 9% enchancment.

Davidson’s evaluation of these numbers was two-fold: “It is some encouraging, incremental optimistic momentum,” he stated. And, there’s plenty of work to be completed.

“The truth is, it is nonetheless within the backside 5 states for curiosity in visiting,” he stated.

Jeremy Lipschultz, a social media professor on the College of Nebraska at Omaha, stated he guessed the preliminary consideration the slogan obtained lower each methods — some individuals have been optimistic about it however some have been destructive as a result of it sounds unique.

Terry Kroeger, president and CEO of Omaha advertising agency Smith Kroeger, stated it was “unlucky that the message was opposite to the reality that Nebraskans are very welcoming to newcomers and guests.”

“This message says the alternative,” he stated in an electronic mail.

Through the current gubernatorial main, Republican candidates talked about altering the slogan.

“Proper now, ‘Nebraska just isn’t for everybody’ just isn’t the message that I need to ship as governor,” Sen. Brett Lindstrom stated at a debate. “We merely cannot. We’ve got too many roles within the state of Nebraska — 60,000-plus unfilled jobs — we’re not going to have the ability to develop organically and produce individuals and retain and recruit expertise by sending that message that Nebraska just isn’t for everybody.”

Lipschultz thinks a lot of the consideration was short-term, and that plenty of elements may drive the long-term, optimistic outcomes, together with work happening in communities throughout the state to advertise downtown growth, tourism and neighborhood engagement — equivalent to UNO Social Media Lab tasks in cities together with Ashland, Ravenna and Valentine.

“I am certain that a few of these native efforts would add up within the bigger numbers throughout the state,” he stated.

Leanne Prewitt, president and chief inventive officer at Ervin & Smith in Omaha, drew a distinction between effectiveness and success. If the objective was to have nationwide recognition for the state’s tagline, it was definitely efficient. And it is doubtless essentially the most memorable tourism slogan the state has ever had, she stated.

With tourism numbers up, she questions whether or not it’s the marketing campaign or the truth that individuals have been pressured to go to flyover states the final two years as a result of they have been reluctant to fly. Even when the slogan did trigger the enhance, she stated, she’d problem whether or not it’s been a whole success as a result of she thinks it offends Nebraskans.

“Even for those who get effectiveness in all or any of these three areas, for those who disgrace and piss off the residents of the state or the those that the marketing campaign is about, I believe it is not successful,” she stated.

She thinks it was a mistake that the fee used an out-of-state agency (Colorado-based promoting company Vladimir Jones) for the marketing campaign and that there may’ve been a solution to launch it throughout the state that allow individuals in on the joke, quite than letting them really feel mocked.

Again in 2018, Lipschultz instructed the Omaha World-Herald his preliminary grade for the tourism tagline could be solely a C. Now, he stated, he may increase that grade. He’s not fairly certain it’s an A, he stated, however “it’s a contributor to this general momentum.”

Ricks is conscious that some individuals have disparaged the slogan. However, he stated there’s plenty of uniformity throughout the trade — states touting nice eating places, occasions, motels.

“You’ll be able to’t differentiate on sameness,” he stated. The viewers for the marketing campaign, he stated, is individuals who prefer to take time to get pleasure from and wander, who need to “peel again the onion and be taught just a little extra.”

“That’s the ‘not everyones.’ These are the individuals,” he stated. “And, so long as it retains working, we’ll keep on with it.”

Nebraska presently has its largest marketing campaign of Ricks’ tenure: $3 million in media buys. It has added Minneapolis and spot markets in Madison, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma Metropolis to the lineup of Denver, Kansas Metropolis, Des Moines, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

New adverts which are a part of the marketing campaign nonetheless confront the limitations vacationers encounter when deciding whether or not to journey right here, whereas broadcasting the state’s quirkiness.

“We’d set up mountains, however they’d simply block the view” one says, over a panorama photograph of the solar setting over rolling hills. One other, promoting Ashfall Fossil Beds, says “A few of us have been ready 12 million years for you.” 

The fee’s promoting company will change June 30, with Florida-based Miles Partnership popping out on high in a request for proposals. The agency additionally has a Denver location and the fee has labored with it earlier than.

Ricks stated the marketing campaign gained’t change.

“The long-term goal was to at the least get on individuals’s purchasing lists,” Ricks stated. “We had an enormous job when it comes to altering these perceptions. We needed to take individuals unexpectedly and — not essentially shock them — however we needed to get their consideration. The self-deprecating humor was all intentional, and it continues to work.”