by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 3:30 PM ET, Wed January 16, 2019
Brand USA, the destination marketing organization charged with promoting inbound travel to this country, has launched yet another innovative campaign designed to inspire wanderlust and invite the world to come and explore America.
The organization, which over the past few years has launched award-winning IMAX films and documentaries about the United States that have been seen the world over, is now embarking on a mobile campaign designed to highlight the nearly limitless cultures and destinations in the United States from coast to coast.
The new Mobile Content Studio campaign, "United Stories," kicked off in South Dakota yesterday and includes an influencer-led cross-country road trip in specially designed vehicles equipped with cameras to allow people to follow along on the journey.
The goal of the campaign is to expose foreign travelers to authentic voices from across America, showing them that they can find a piece of home here in the U.S., Tracy Lanza, Brand USA's vice president of integrated marketing, told TravelPulse during an interview.
To accomplish this, a variety of content creators, storytellers and influencers will drive the campaign (and that includes influencers quite literally driving Brand USA's mobile content studio vehicles around the country) with the goal of capturing the personalized and compelling individual narratives that make up the many voices of the United States.
"The idea is to curate a symphony of voices that we can use to tell travel stories," Lanza explained. "There are so many different ways to experience USA. It's important that we don't have just one voice telling the story of this country."
The campaign will feature influencers from the UK, Australia, and Germany among others, places that are considered priority markets for the United States, according to Lanza. The influencers will help Brand USA create content in real time, which, in addition to capturing multiple voices, is another big priority for the new effort.
"It used to be that you would create a campaign, then hire an agency, go out and shoot and three months later you would have a finished product," Lanza continued, explaining that the new campaign is designed to create content at something closer to the speed of consumption.
"That's the idea behind the mobile content lab," she said. "We don't want it to take three months to go out and create a campaign. What we're capturing on road goes straight back to the studio and is released soon after."
The first group of influencers chosen to participate in the campaign arrived in the United States late last week, on Thursday, and by this Tuesday the first batch of content was released.
Influencers will continue to be flown to the country over the coming weeks and months to participate in the ongoing campaign as the mobile labs roam from coast to coast.
"We want to capture stories that people can't find in guidebooks about America," Lanza said. "I think this campaign is going to be a combination of seeing things through a new lens, or hearing things in a new way, or discovering things you never knew you could do here."
You can follow the new campaign on Instagram at the hashtag #UnitedStories.
Brand USA's previous notable marketing efforts included the award-winning film, "National Parks Adventure," commemorating the 100th anniversary of the National Parks Service in the United States. The IMAX film increased traveler spending in this country at least $700 million, according to a return on investment study released in August by the organization.
Its creation was a collaboration between Brand USA, MacGillivray Films, Expedia, and Air Canada. The film was narrated by Academy Award-winner Robert Redford and takes viewers on a spectacular journey through the treasured landscapes of our national parks, including Yosemite and Yellowstone.
The film was shown at 48 exhibitions in six countries in February 2016 and 119 exhibitions in 16 countries within its first 12 months.
Yet another groundbreaking effort from Brand USA last year was "America's Musical Journey," a feature-length, documentary featuring singer/songwriter Aloe Blacc traveling around the country exploring the rich heritage of American music.
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