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With #AmptheAwesome, Pinellas ups tourism in payback, and risk

 
Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the Pinellas tourism agency, plans to run ads for its “Amp the Awesome” summer campaign.
Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the Pinellas tourism agency, plans to run ads for its “Amp the Awesome” summer campaign.
Published May 5, 2015

CLEARWATER — Pinellas County has spent millions crafting a brand that paints itself as a halcyon beach paradise with plenty to do after the sun sets.

That strategy has attracted a record number of visitors, year after year. This summer, though, tourism officials are going to try something a tad risky:

They're going to let tourists define the Pinellas brand, using social media.

Visitors will be invited to brag about their Pinellas adventure using the #AmptheAwesome hashtag on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter — or critique it, potentially exposing the brand to an embarrassing social media fail.

But that's a risk every brand already takes, said Visit St. Pete/Clearwater executive director David Downing, who leads the county's public tourism agency.

"If you love your brand, you have to let it go," he said. "We can't control our brand. We don't own our brand. Our brand is what exists in the minds of our visitors and our industry partners.

"We can spend a lot of money trying to frame what people will think of the brand. But at the end of the day, the brand is not owned by us. We accept that."

This summer's "Amp the Awesome" campaign builds on last year's "Live Amplified" theme, when Pinellas added a layer of adventure to its traditionally beach-reliant brand. The tourism industry wanted the brand to start reflecting the county's growing array of craft breweries, museums, nightclubs and restaurants.

"Amp the Awesome" continues that trend, and #AmptheAwesome will let tourists define their own Pinellas experience and show it to the world.

But officials have added a twist: They also want tourists to interact with them on social media.

Tourists could use #AmptheAwesome to praise the area, for example, or complain about a particular problem they're having, or ask for tips or even help. They'll also be able to text VSPC if they'd prefer to stay off social media.

VSPC will respond to select requests, Downing said, committing what the agency will call "random acts of awesome." Those are the interactions they hope will spark the social media dialogue they want with visitors.

"We really have no idea what to expect," he said. "We've come up with examples like, say a couple needs a babysitter for the evening, or someone wants a spa treatment, or they've always wanted to try parasailing.

"We're going to be inviting suggestions and monitoring them and acting on them rather quickly," Downing said.

The problem is that officials won't be able to control how that social media conversation will play out. That happened to McDonald's when the fast-food giant tried its #McDstories campaign in 2012. The Twitterverse instead hijacked the hashtag and used it to complain about poor food and service.

But that's a risk every brand takes on social media. Pinellas enjoyed great success with its #WinterBlows campaign this past winter. Viral marketing campaigns like that, though, can backfire.

Downing said there are two benefits to using #AmptheAwesome to interact with tourists:

Officials want to use social media to research their customer base: Who is visiting Pinellas, and why, what are they doing here, and will they come back?

Social media, officials think, will be more valuable than the usual online polls they rely on.

"When you pose the question, you lose part of the answer," Downing said. "But when you have open-ended questions that they can respond to and interpret how they want to, it's a purer result."

The second benefit is that tourists themselves are just as good — if not better — at advertising the Pinellas brand than the traditional "Amp the Awesome" ad campaign set to ramp up at the end of the month.

Starting Memorial Day weekend, the county will roll out digital and print ads, radio spots and a specially branded "Amp the Awesome" sailboat that will sail up and down the Pinellas coast five days a week and all over the bay area this summer.

That campaign will be aimed at Pinellas' summer drive-in tourism market. Those tourists come from the Tampa Bay and Orlando regions and anywhere south of Atlanta. This year, officials also will focus on growing markets in New York City and Latin America.

But what could be even more effective is if those tourists take to social media and tell their friends, family and co-workers what a great time they had.

"You can push your brand all you want," Downing said. "But what's even more powerful and beneficial is to have your customer do it for you, because they want to."

Contact Jamal Thalji at thalji@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3404. Follow @jthalji.