Our Clients

Why Hire Us?

  • 30+ years of experience
  • 400+ clients served
  • Unprecedented track-record increasing clients' MROI
  • Broad list of industries served
  • No-commitment initial consultation

Case Study

Chattanooga - Repositioning a City for Economic Growth - By using the basic theme that we discovered and recommended based on our Marketing Opportunity Analysis, over the past decade, the Chattanooga (Hamilton County) area’s tourism revenue has increased dramatically..."
Read More >

Resources

Read e-books, position papers, speeches and surveys we have produced for our clients. Coming Soon!

Newsletter Sign-Up

Enter your email address below:

Connect With Us

Improve Your Marketing ROI by 150-300%

We've helped over 350 clients break their marketing ROI records. We can do it for you.
Let's Talk >

Tourism – Tunica, MS

Case Study 3: Tunica, Mississippi Convention and Visitors Bureau Results

Before Hiring Ethridge

Soon after legalization of “riverboat gambling” in Mississippi, Tunica, MS, which had been one of the most economically impoverished counties in the U.S. was one of the first areas in the nation to begin offering “riverboat casinos.” The first offerings were rather small and lower scale compared to the resort destinations that were later built there. Local government wanted to upgrade the destination to be more than a casino destination; to provide other offerings as well, such as world-class golf resorts, a sports arena, a river walk and big-name entertainment.

After Hiring Ethridge

When Tunica Mississippi’s Convention and Visitors Bureau and its ad agency, Combs and Company, Inc., first asked Ethridge & Associates, L.L.C. to conduct a Marketing Opportunity Analysis for it, the destination had only begun to have resort hotels and big name entertainment. The first study that Ethridge conducted for the destination found that the market did not yet recognize it as a tourism destination with more to offer than casino gaming, or for its classy resort hotels. In fact, at that time, research showed that the most distinctive element of its image was that it had RV camping parks. At the time, consumers perceived the idea of “riverboat casinos” to be smaller casinos that were literally cruising out on the water, rather than resort hotel casinos on the bank of the river.

Based on our proprietary Marketing Opportunity Analysis, Ethridge recommended that the destination build a campaign that would strategically position the Tunica brand as a place with world-class hotel resorts with luxurious amenities, such as fine dining, luxury suites and big-name entertainment, in addition to 24-hour gambling that is a short drive to get to: in short, to position Tunica as “The Las Vegas of the South.”

Based on these recommendations Combs and Company developed a new brand image-building campaign for Tunica. After the campaign had run a sufficient length of time to see results, Ethridge was hired to conduct an Inquirer Conversion Study to measure the results. The study found that the conversation rate generated by the campaign, as compared by media used in the campaign, ranged from a high of 81% for one cable TV market to a low of 10% for one national newspaper, with the average conversion rate being 30%. Moreover, the ad-generated expenditures from the campaign were $3.5 million ($277 per inquirer), with an average return on investment for every dollar spent on advertising of $3.11 (311%).

Spot Market Campaigns

More importantly, several years later, when Ben Combs, President of Combs & Company, the advertising agency for the Tunica CVB, hired Ethridge & Associates to do Conversion Studies for Tunica, he wanted to conduct conversion-related research that would:

  • Study the unique dynamics of two spot markets to understand what message and media strategy to use in those markets
  • Determine whether advertising in spot markets “no matter where” they may be located would result in a sufficient return on investment to warrant spot marketing ad expenditures (an “insurance policy,” before rolling out spot marketing to more than the first two markets)
  • Use a “double-validation” approach (i.e., studying two spot markets) over a two-year period to be sure that the results of one market were not unique to one market.

To validate the research even further, two media markets (DMA’s) were selected with very different characteristics, as described below:

  • Nashville, TN — The challenge here was that gaming incidence was only 13% and those who did visit casino destinations could catch easy flights to Las Vegas; whereas, Tunica was a 5-hour drive. How do you get them to drive to Tunica instead of fly to Las Vegas?
  • St. Louis, MO — The challenge here was that the St. Louis market already had a variety of casinos, whereas Tunica was a 5-6 hour drive away. How do you get gamers to drive 5-6 hours to Tunica to gamble in casinos when they already have casinos in their back yard?

Pre-Tests studies of gamers were conducted in each spot market (not just among inquirers) to:

  • Establish benchmarks against which to measure the campaign’s effectiveness
  • Provide prescriptive guidance to the message and media strategies

Then, Post-Test studies were conducted after each spot market campaign to measure the effect of the campaign compared to the pre-test benchmark studies.

  • Traditional Inquiry Conversion Studies were also conducted in each market.
  • All studies employed the telephone interviewing data collection methodology, using probability sampling with adequately large samples.

Key results of the two campaigns are described below by market.

  • The ad-generated consumer expenditures in Tunica from the Nashville DMA campaign increased $21.9 million to 157% of the pre-campaign measure.
  • The ad-generated consumer expenditures in Tunica from the Saint Louis DMA campaign increased $34.5 million to 188% of the pre-campaign measure.

Increase in Marketing Return on Investment
Pre-Campaign Benchmark Compared to Post-Campaign Ad Effectiveness Measurement

Whereas the previous Marketing Return on Investment (MROI) — the dollars returned to the market for every dollar spent on advertising — was $3.11, the MROI for these spot market campaigns that were developed based on our Marketing Opportunity Analysis recommendations was more than ten times higher as follows:

  • Nashville $45.64
  • Saint Louis $37.68

Moreover, this study found that Non-Inquirers (those who just made the trip without calling the CVB’s 1-800 phone number to inquire about vacation information before making the trip) generated 504% more ad-generated expenditures into the Tunica market than did Inquirers. The reason was that Inquirers represented only a very small percentage of those who visited the destination in response to the advertising. This means that the traditional way that the tourism industry has measured the effectiveness of advertising, i.e., among Inquirers only, does not measure the full impact of advertising campaigns.

Thus, a study like this one that measures the MROI among the total market is the only way to measure the true impact of advertising.

Awards and Speaking Engagements

Ethridge & Associates, L.L.C won the Travel and Tourism Research Association’s (TTRA) “Research in Action” Award (in conjunction with his advertising agency client Combs and Company for the particular research project) for strategic research applied toward developing an effective marketing campaign.  By request, the two firms also made joint presentations of this research before the TTRA’s International Conference in New Orleans on June 13, 2005 and then again later that year to the TTRA’s Southern Central State’s Conference in Little Rock in September of that year.

These are typical of the types of results that Ethridge & Associates leads our clients to experience. We have established a consistent track record of helping clients achieve unprecedented increases in their Marketing/Communication Return on Investment.