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Illinois Wants More Hispanic Visitors
December 01, 2005
By Jason Fargo
Illinois isn't particularly known as a magnet for Hispanic tourists, but the Illinois Bureau of Tourism is determined to change that. A multimedia campaign launched this year via The San Jose Group aims to convince Hispanic travelers to explore the state's hinterlands.
The campaign came about because the bureau realized the large number of Hispanics in Chicago formed a ready-made market. "Chicago just surpassed Miami as the third most-populated Hispanic community in the nation," says Lee Hillerich, the bureau's minority marketing coordinator. But, he adds, many Hispanics don't travel throughout the state.
The campaign uses print ads and TV commercials in Chicago's major Spanish-language media outlets and features a Web site in Spanish that targets tourists (disfrutaillinois.com).
"We found that the Hispanic community usually takes about two domestic trips a year," says Hillerich. Often, one trip is to Florida or California, where they may have family. Hillerich admits that Illinois cannot do much about that. "So we might miss out on that first one, but we can vie for that second one," he says.
The Spanish-language program has a budget of about $350,000, and uses ads in Hoy and La Raza, as well as in bilingual weekly Extra.
During the fall, The San Jose Group placed 30- and 60-second spots on the local Univision affiliate's 10 p.m. newscast. The ads, which ran for about eight weeks, used pre-existing footage of Illinois destinations, and The San Jose Group developed the script, says Santiago Torres, account group director. But, "for efficiency's sake," The San Jose Group had Univision produce the ads to the agency's specifications. That also helped save money.
The campaign also made use of special radio promotions in which listeners were encouraged to drive to a given tourist attraction to receive free admission passes to locations such as Starved Rock (a state park in western Illinois) or Six Flags, explains Torres.
In many ways, the Spanish-language campaign mirrors the state's mass-market outreach. The Spanish Web site, like its English counterpart, provides a calendar of events and suggested itineraries. Yet, one thing that didn't translate was the tag line. "In the general market, they use the 'Mile After Magnificent Mile' slogan. And 'Magnificent Mile' doesn't resonate as much as it might in the general market," Torres says.
The name is a local term for Chicago's Michigan Avenue luxury shopping district.
"With the Hispanic market, they might shop on Michigan Avenue," Torres says, "but they might shop more in Little Village [a working-class Mexican neighborhood] or within their neighborhoods."
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