Destination Mansfield – Richland County attended the Ohio Conference on Travel in West Chester, October 16-18. They joined other travel industry leaders to discuss travel trends and opportunities, as well as to hear from national experts. Also attending were the Little Buckeye Children’s Museum. During the educational conference, local tourism marketing shined brightly with a total of eight awards for exceptional marketing, two for Destination Mansfield and six for Little Buckeye Children’s Museum.
Destination Mansfield – Richland County received a RUBY AWARD for the Shawshank 25th Anniversary Marketing Campaign and a Citation of Excellence for the Shawshank 25th Anniversary Digital Marketing Campaign in the statewide RUBY Awards Competition. In addition, Little Buckeye Children’s Museum won four Ruby Awards and two Citations of Excellence. Destination Mansfield – Richland County is proud of the accomplishments of Fred Boll and his team at Little Buckeye.
“Richland County had strong representation at the conference and in the marketing competition. We are pleased to help bring notoriety, visitors, and pride to our community through recognition of the strength of creativity and marketing abilities of the tourism industry,” said Lee Tasseff, President of Destination Mansfield – Richland County.
The RUBY Award recognition for Destination Mansfield was for their Shawshank 25th Anniversary Marketing Campaign, which focused on capturing the attention of Shawshank fans through print and digital ads, a billboard in New York’s Times Square, Over-the-Top (OTT) streaming ads, paid social, and the new ShawshankTrail.com website. The Citation of Excellence recognition was for The Shawshank 25th Anniversary Digital Campaign. This campaign used search engine marketing, paid social, digital display ads, and geo-targeting to reach movie fans of The Shawshank Redemption across contiguous states. The campaign was highly successful and gained added exposure for the 25th Anniversary weekend and the ongoing Shawshank Trail. The campaign generated a total of 1,800,726 impressions and 79,824 clicks to our message and websites.
The Ohio Travel Association RUBY Awards recognize excellence in Ohio’s travel industry for efforts in advertising, marketing and public relations. RUBY Award stands for Recognizing Uncommon Brilliance (RUBY) Award and honors those who have found the most innovative ways to market their destination, experiences or services. Competition was strong this year with more than 215 entries in print-based, web-based, marketing campaign, advertisement, and video categories. The awards are sponsored by Ohio Magazine.
The Ohio Travel Association is the non-profit association representing attractions, destination marketing organizations, hotels, museums, suppliers, restaurants, campgrounds and other businesses who make up Ohio’s $46 billion travel industry. For more information about the Ohio Travel Association and how to get involved with others in the travel industry, visit OhioTravel.org.
