Pointe West

Spoiler alert: This campaign won an Effie. Which not only means it was very effective, but that I also survived the Effie entry process – something only 14% of Effie entrants manage.

If you’re at all familiar with Galveston Island, chances are you don’t think “beachside paradise” or “the Cape Cod of southeast Texas.” And that would be fair, considering that as you cross the main bridge from the bulk of Texas onto the island, you are greeted by an oil refinery and a cavalcade of strip malls. But if you were to hang a right and cruise on down (and down and down) to the southern end of the island, you would actually find a locale worthy of your precious leisure time.

But still, it’s Galveston, right?

Right, so how did we overcome the perceptual stank of Galveston to generate interest in and sales at a resort community located in its fairer parts? By turning a weakness into a strength, of course.

Enter The Secret Coast.

 We kept the location a secret with a teaser campaign that compared Pointe West to similar, more popular locals (Martha’s Vineyard, Destin, etc.), with the promise of it being much, much closer to home for our primary audience – Texans. Did it work? Well, I already revealed that it won an Effie for effectiveness, and I refuse to fudge numbers for the sake of industry paperweights, so you be the judge.

Of note, this is one of two or three projects for which I somehow lost a good chunk of my work files. But the main thing you’ll be missing here is the actual website. Pity.

This was inserted into travel magazines popular in DFW, Austin, Houston, and, perhaps, Laredo. But probably not Laredo. Perforated postcards to help spread the word. Granted, we didn’t really care if anyone used the cards as long as they went to the website.

A teaser campaign can only tease for so long. Nonetheless, we did not want to instantly shift to a more standard-issue campaign, so we kept The Secret Coast going while shifting the graphic look a bit.