Client: Visit Houston
September 2016
How do you draw tourists to a city with no attraction?
Over the last few years, Houston has been evolving. Not just as a great business city, but as a cool place to visit. The arts and entertainment scene are on fire, the culinary scene is over the top and the city is now the most ethnically diverse
in the country.
But, how could we get the world's tourists to take notice when Houston is competing with the most established travel destinations on earth? New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, London, Istanbul, Hong Kong, the Maldives – the list goes on.
We had to give Houston's image a makeover to get people to take truly notice.
With a small budget – only 5% of Visit Houston's annual ad spend –
we set out to hack the world's fashion press at New York Fashion Week.
Where all the
cool kids hang.
So, we made a call to world-famous global fashion designer Vivienne Tam.
She had collaborated with Starbucks, Disney, Mandarin Oriental, Barbie, Square, HP. Our hope was she would be even more excited about Houston.
And the launch?
Astronaut Tracy Dyson opened the show from the International Space Station, followed by 47 dazzling Houston-themed dresses.
Insta-famous
Over 20 million impressions on Instagram, including postings by Christina Milian, Yo Ventura, Paris Hilton, Daniel Campbell, Yandy Smith, Nigel Barker, Carol Alt and Karreuche Tran.
On top of that, the Houston Collection was featured in over 23 country editions of Vogue, WWD, NBC News, ELLE, FOX Business News, The Verge, L’express France, Fashion One TV, Vanity Fair, the Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, PopSugar, Billboard and Harper’s Bazaar.
Ripple effect
4+
BILLION
press impressions to date
$50
MILLION
estimated media value
(300 x ROI of initial investment)
$2.25
MILLION
estimated sponsorhip value
23
country-specific versions of Vogue Magazine
300+
articles written about
the integration
23
unique fashion pieces created
2
YEARS
travel goal set for 2020 broken in 2018
1
OF
4
global fashion weeks
Encore
The Houston Collection was further showcased at the prestigious In Style Expo in Beijing, where Vivienne was the main headliner. 100,000 attendees and millions watching at home on CCTV, all witnessed the Houston Collection. To date, this resulted in an additional 2 billion free media impressions for the city of Houston.
4 billion and counting
After traveling around the world, the Houston Collection made its way back to Houston, where Mayor Sylvester Turner declared May 4th as "Vivienne Tam Day."
To date, the collection has reached 4 billion impressions and has been sold throughout the world with Japan, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Korea, United States and Panama leading the way. As a result, fashionistas continue to celebrate Houston as human billboards throughout the world.
