‘Fun-sized’ delivers to tune of millions

PROVIDENCE — “Funized” is paying big dividends for the state’s tourism industry, according to Lara Salamano, chief marketing officer of the state Commerce Corporation.

“We’ve seen great results,” Salamano said, offering numbers to back that up.

The advertising campaign based on the embodiment of Rhode Island’s diminutive geography got underway in November and, by early June, had already reaped $1.9 million in hotel revenue by generating 6,076 bookings, Salamano said. It also is associated with the booking of 4,234 flights to Rhode Island, she said.

Because a visitor’s total spending is in general almost six times what is spent on a hotel room, Salamano said, the “fun-sized” campaign could have netted more than $11 million for the Rhode Island economy.

All that at a cost of $682,000 for a series of seven- or eight-second digital videos that run as ads on websites. A travel data company, Adara, embeds a small code in each ad and can track when people who viewed an ad later book flights or hotel stays, Salamano said.

Each ad follows a similar theme: it starts with a closeup of people engaged in a fun activity in Rhode Island before dramatically zooming out to show an aerial view of the same scene, accompanied with a jingle, the slogan “fun-sized” and the internet address for the state’s tourism site, VisitRhodeIsland.com.

The original batch of ads included a fisherman at Beavertail Point, a group in a corn maze and kayakers along the coast. The campaign has since added two featuring tubing, skiing and snowboarding at Yawgoo Valley.

Four more are currently in production and should show up online in about a month, according to Commerce Corporation spokesman Brian Hodge.

Those feature WaterFire in Providence, paddle-boarding at Block Island, the Breakers mansion and sailing in Newport.

The ads are the brainchild of the Commerce Corporation’s advertising consultant, Nail Communications, Salamano said. They are shot with one camera on the ground, plus another on a drone and stitched together in a zooming effect, she said.

If you live in Rhode Island, don’t expect to see them when you’re web surfing, Salamano said. “We don’t want to put money into a marketplace to drive Rhode Islanders to Rhode Island.”

The ads target cities within a day’s drive of Rhode Island, such as New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Baltimore, as well as those linked by direct flight to T.F. Green Airport, such as Cincinnati, Fort Myers, Denver and New Orleans, she said.

Robert D. Billington, president of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, said his council will celebrate it at its annual dinner in October.

And that’s despite his only complaint about the campaign: A spot showing rock climbing in Lincoln Woods State Park is the only one featuring the Blackstone Valley. “We want to see more, of course.”

Billington said that at least one more may be coming. In December, crews filmed the council’s Polar Express train ride, a Christmas tradition in Woonsocket.

He also said he was initially taken aback by the brevity of the ads running less than 10 seconds. “I’m still used to 30-second commercials, a one-minute commercial,” but he added, “it doesn’t have to appeal to me. It has to work.”

Which is exactly how Salamano measures the campaign.

While a state’s tourism campaign generally runs for two years, “fun-sized” could go longer or could be cut shorter, she said. “We’ll continue to look at our results and go from there.”