Issue link: http://tourismwpg.uberflip.com/i/1249269
It is always interesting to ask people outside of the city, "What do you know about or think of Winnipeg?" But, when our Marketing and Branding team typed Winnipeg into Google's search engine in 2019, it revealed some jaw-dropping questions such as, "Does Winnipeg really exist?" Our marketing team saw this as an opportunity to counteract some incorrect and negative ideas about Winnipeg and also give our business development team a creative tool to start conversations about why this city is a great place to move or grow a business. The bonus was that it and also resonated with Winnipeggers who encountered the same strange ideas about their city. Using the viral WIRED Autocomplete Interview series as inspiration, our in-house content team produced a cost-effective yet attention-grabbing video. It set out to debunk myths floating around that might prevent visitors, site selectors and businesses from choosing Winnipeg. Industry leaders, City of Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman and our President & CEO Dayna Spiring jumped on board. In under four minutes, we showed how Winnipeg is a world-class city with great business opportunities, attractions and a colourful arts and culture scene. It showed our strengths and embraced what some might see as weakness, such as our cold climate. Winnipeggers embrace the season, owning it with fun and innovative wintertime activities, while our industry-leading companies and research centres use it to their advantage, such as the GE and Standard Aero Test Research and Development Centre (TRDC), Bell MTS Data Centre, Northstar Robotics and Red River College's MotiveLab. It is also one of three cities in North America that is designated as an official 'Winter City' by the World Winter Cities Association for Mayors. The video had a successful debut at the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce Celebrate Winnipeg luncheon. It quickly became the talk of the town, thanks to paid and organic social media posts and word of mouth. We posted the video to YouTube and our newsroom blog, and shared it on Economic Development Winnipeg and Tourism Winnipeg's Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts. Combined, the video received nearly 140,000 views and the post earned more than 200,000 impressions during the month-long campaign. The video won us an eTSY Award for Best Use of Video (Small Budget). The awards celebrated excellence in Digital Tourism Marketing and were handed out at the eTourism Summit in San Francisco in October. It is the top North American gathering of destination digital marketers in travel and their partner agencies. Marketing spotlight Google Autocomplete video and award 33 2019 Annual Report