Succees Story: Atlanta Botanical Garden
The Challenge
- Atlanta Botanical Garden, a top Southeast attraction, needed to increase visitors to a key summer event in order to continue it for the following years. The event, named Cocktails in the Garden, historically drove low attendance from non-members making it difficult to offset the costs. The main garden visitor, affluent women 45-64, were not coming unless they were already members. In order to drive paid attendance and continue the event, a younger, more social audience needed to be reached.
The Solution
- Watauga Group partnered with 212 Media and the Garden to overhaul the media plan. Traditional media was removed from the plan, which in the past focused on terrestrial radio and OOH. Terrestrial Radio was replaced with Streaming (Spotify & Pandora), while new digital tactics were added including Facebook & Instagram, as well as programmatic display targeting millennials interested in bars, beer & wine, cocktails and going out. In addition, creative was aligned with the new channel mix to showcase the younger, millennial audience enjoying a cocktail in the garden
The Results
- Targeting new audiences began in 2016. It was the first year the event started driving a younger audience. A promo was pushed to test the effectiveness of social media through Instagram only with a BOGO ticket that sold out and drove the highest evening attendance to date. It was clear the channels and messaging aligned perfectly with the new audience.
- Over the next four years, the digital plan continued to evolve as media habits shifted, eventually leading to a social only plan. New platforms were tested including Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok. The event became so successful that it was expanded from one night a week (Thursdays only) to nightly in 2020.
- The overall campaign drove record event attendance and an 8:1 ROAS.
