A "ray of Hawke's Bay sunshine" will be delivered to Auckland and Wellington residents this month, to entice them to Hawke's Bay.
Venture Hawke's Bay unveiled phase two of their Everything Under The Sun campaign yesterday with the organisation hoping to build on their summer success.
Central to the project are yellow
glow sticks which will be dropped in letter boxes around Wellington and Auckland. The sticks advertise the campaign website where exclusive special offers will be available.
Regional promotion and marketing manager Michael Wan said the campaign targeted the empty-nesters and upwardly mobile who wanted a short break and a good deal.
"There's not a lot to it but it gets your attention. It's fun and different and hopefully people will talk about it and go online to find out what it's about."
The campaign will run from today until May 21 and includes newspaper and TV advertising, the letter box drop and internet banner ads. Direct email marketing will also be used with Venture Hawke's Bay accessing 300,000 people through the Air New Zealand Airpoints database and 100,000 people from the the AA Travel database. There will be a stand at the Wellington Food Show from May 13 to 16.
Venture Hawke's Bay would spend about $45,000 on this phase of the domestic marketing campaign bringing the total investment to just under $200,000.
"The focus will be on the shoulder seasons," Mr Wan said.
"We want to create a stable and consistent foundation on the website so people will return to it when they're thinking about a holiday."
The campaign had proven successful so far, despite criticism from some individuals and groups.
Data from the holiday period showed that in January the area had an increase of 5475 guest nights over January 2009.
Mr Wan said the Everything Under The Sun campaign was the only major difference between the two months and he felt the promotion had played a big part in the increase.
"Our responsibility is to promote Hawke's Bay, to get people to fall in love with it," Mr Wan said.
"We have got a way to go. We have been off the radar for a long time - it takes time to get people's attention."
