Officials: Ad campaign raised estimated $110 million in tax revenue

A year-long advertising campaign that focused on the most lucrative travel markets delivered record-breaking results, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, Nevada Commission on Tourism chair, announced.

"Our ad campaign reached a carefully targeted group of consumers with the means and desire to travel and convinced them to visit us," Krolicki said. "In the face of a national economic downturn, NCOT's winter and summer ads attracted visitors who spent money in Nevada that generated $110 million in tax revenue directly attributed to the ad campaign, a greater return on our investment than ever before."

Every $1 that NCOT invested in the ads generated $31 in tax revenue.

"We ran a thrifty campaign aimed at our most responsive and proven markets and got our message to the right people," NCOT Director Dann Lewis said. "We also integrated the media to include television, Google In-stream video, Internet advertising and national travel magazines, a combination that helped increase our return on investment. It was a prescription for success and we're gratified to get such good-news results for Nevada tourism."

The percentage of consumers who saw or heard the ads in markets where they ran jumped from 29.7 percent in 2009 to 42.9 percent in fiscal 2010, which ended June 30.

Winter ads featured skiing at Lake Tahoe for TV, and the engaging "Capture Your Heart" ad, which showed two hands forming a heart that framed a Lake Tahoe scene, for Internet and print. Summer ads focused on outdoor recreation for TV, Internet and print. The ads ran in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Reno, the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, Sacramento and Salt Lake City.

Key to the campaign's achievement was using new technology and strategies to pinpoint only specific markets where consumers were most likely to respond to travel ads, rather than advertising across entire regions, Lewis said, noting that NCOT invested $3.5 million for the entire year's campaign, 30.6 percent less than in 2009 because of budget reductions