The Result of Visit California’s 24-Hour YouTube Takeover

Earlier this month Visit California made one of the largest investments in content marketing that we’ve yet to see from a tourism board.

The organization launched a 24-hour ad takeover of YouTube with 24 different videos playing on the site. It is now sharing several statistics about the impact of the major media buy:

• Interaction ranged from 12 to 13 percent in the first 24 hours with an average interaction time of 8 to 9 minutes.
• Desktop interaction across all markets translates to over 22,270 hours, or 2.5 years, of branded interaction time.
• Increased awareness and engagement also led to a 7 percent increase in trip consideration among exposed audience, on par with historic results from media activity, and a 17 percent rise lift in likelihood to visit among exposed audience.

“The launch activity created a great deal of momentum for this exciting new content initiative,” a Visit California representative explains.

“Over the next 90 days, the focus will be on sustaining that momentum through a substantial digital paid media program combined with robust owned and earned activity.”

As a comparison, Visit St. Pete/Clearwater‘s recently successful orange juice carton campaign resulted in 306,157 site page views, 5,304 e-newsletter sign-ups,  2,019 destination magazine requests, and 146,401 free trip entries across Facebook, mobile, and online.