No one knows quite like ad agencies, how important every single word can be. We give extensive thought to every word and phrase. We choose words carefully because what we’re writing has to be descriptive yet concise. It has to impress the reader even though we’re writing for a wide audience with differing levels of reading comprehension. We also consider pace, cadence and alliteration, especially if we’re writing a script that will be read by professional voice talent.

So far in Mikula-Harris’ 30 year history, our choice of words in an ad has not caused an international incident. That was not the case when Turkey recently launched a tourism campaign. To most Americans, the TurkAegean campaign seems harmless. It’s a made up word formed by combining two others, like advertorial or frenemy. Not to mention, Turkey’s west coast is on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea. In some parts of the world where centuries old disagreements exist, a single word can cause tension. The campaign stirred up old feelings about control of the Aegean.

Not only has Mikula-Harris avoided causing any geo-political tension, we actually helped ease some. Well, actually they’re more local, but still passionate positions that needed to be handled deftly. While doing a tourism branding project in West Virginia, we learned that the county that hired us had three distinct areas. One was the county seat where most of the local commerce was located. Another was an area known as the Lost River Valley. It’s a picturesque region with mountains, rolling farmland, and a few high-end B&Bs. The third was a small but growing town that was located on a busy road that a lot of visitors traveled on their way through this county to nearby ski resorts. In this small town, some local businesses had recently popped up using the name Lost River. That did not sit well with the purists in the Lost River Valley. It wasn’t truthful and genuine, they thought, since the town was literally on the other side of a mountain and thus not located in the valley. After assessing the big picture, we advised the client that visitors are not concerned with artificial boundaries like town or county lines and most certainly do not care about what constitutes a valley. We assured them all that with the town serving as a gateway to the Lost River Valley it genuinely helped support and promote the brand. We saw it as a win-win. A few months later at a wonderful dinner at one of those charming B&Bs, a group of local business owners from both the valley and the nearby town all dined together and actually raised a glass to toast Mikula-Harris as the peacemaker. All they needed was an outside expert with no pre-conceived bias, to point out that they’re stronger together. That branding work won some awards, yet the Nobel still eludes us.

The Mikula-Harris team is just getting started on a branding project for the Town of Appomattox, VA. It’s a cool small town located east of Lynchburg. The drive between our office in Vinton and Appomattox is especially wonderful because most of the miles are in Bedford County. Returning from a meeting recently, I was driving west on Route 460. Once past the congestion of Lynchburg, you begin to see the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. As the sun slowly sank on the horizon, I was reminded where the inspiration for the ad campaign “Where Ordinary Ends, Bedford Begins” came from as well as the line of ad copy “To the east and west are bustling cities, but in between is pure bliss.”

The message perfectly hits the nail right on the head for Bedford. We knew instinctively that the branding and creative work we did for Destination Bedford was gold. Now that some time has passed, we’re able to see that it’s helping move the needle. All of the newly branded campaign materials hit the street in early 2020. The website launched in March and traffic grew steadily all through the year. There were three times as many users and page views in April 2021 than during the same period in 2020.

What are the reasons for this success? As with most tourism marketing success stories, it’s not a single magic thing. It’s a combination of things:

• The new website follows all best practices for SEO. Result: Organic Search as a source of traffic is up 490%.

• Social media as a source of traffic is way up because the team at Destination Bedford is working hard at consistently posting quality content.

• The management and marketing team at Destination Bedford is investing its advertising budget in the right places — building brand awareness and generating website traffic.

The future looks bright for tourism growth in Bedford County. In the meantime, the present is pure bliss.

540.774.9932

6 Walnut Avenue • Vinton, Virginia 24179

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