The American Marketing Association recently published a case study on both 'Kentucky for Kentucky' and our 'Kentucky Kicks Ass' campaign in it's May 2014 Marketing News issue. Check out the full article here. Thanks Molly for the great case study!
Peggy Bendel, president of the New York-based travel marketing firm Bendel Communications International and a board member for the Association of Travel Marketing Executives (ATME), says that the "Kentucky Kicks Ass" messaging is disruptive and untraditional, as is the effort, itself. "They're not only using some of the iconic Kentucky things, like bourbon and the Kentucky Derby, to appeal to tourists, but it also seems to be appealing to people who live in Kentucky or who are from Kentucky who've moved elsewhere," she says. "Anything that raises the visibility and positive awareness of a destination helps with tourism."
Adds Krista Pappas, also an ATME board member and the COO of Somerville, Mass.-based DuVine Cycling and Adventure Co., a marketing futurist and the former head of travel media at NYTimes.com: "It drives value to the state for sure, and that's what [the state and the Kentucky for Kentucky team] want. … It's reaching an audience that [the state] wouldn't otherwise have, to promote Kentucky in a way that it otherwise wouldn't be."