NEW YORK CITY (February, 2016) – At a black-tie gala dinner in New York City Tuesday night, Visit Tampa Bay earned four Adrian Awards for its work marketing Tampa and Hillsborough County to travelers from across the country and around the world.

Hillsborough County’s destination marketing organization received four Adrian Awards, including the top award – the Platinum — in the highly contested “Complete Campaign” category for its innovative Bay Crafted craft beer campaign.

The Adrian Awards are presented each year by the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International. Awards are given in Bronze, Silver and Gold categories. Gold winners are eligible for Platinum and Best in Show awards.

Visit Tampa Bay earned Platinum and Gold Adrian awards for its 2015 “Bay Crafted” campaign, built around Hillsborough County’s creative and growing craft beer scene. The campaign, which ran last summer, enlisted local breweries to tell the story of Tampa Bay’s craft beer through:

• Baycrafted.com, a stand-alone website that drew beer-lovers into the experience of Tampa Bay, Florida’s undisputed hub for craft brewing.
• A “Bay Crafted” station on the Pandora.com Internet radio site that was downloaded 10,702 times.
• A widely viewed video featuring brewers and beer lovers extolling the virtues that have made Tampa Bay Florida’ hub for craft brewing. “I live in paradise and make beer. What could be better?” said brewer at the end of the video.
• Craft-beer events in Orlando and Miami that introduced audiences to Tampa Bay beer brands and varieties they had never tried before.
• Posters, beer glasses and T-shirts that beer lovers could take home from events to spread the word of Tampa Bay’s beer scene.
• A “Bay Crafted” badge on “UnTappd,” a social media site that lets beer lovers share their favorite frosty beverages with their friends. Beer lovers earned the badge by checking in at local breweries. Visit Tampa Bay’s UnTappd badge was unlocked more than 77,000 times in the two month campaign and reached more than 5 million people from New York City to Nashville to Orlando.

A third-party analysis of the $75,000 “Bay Crafted” campaign showed it reached 1 million people and generated $3.2 million in new revenue for Hillsborough County. The craft beer campaign generated 11,300 additional room-nights in local hotels, according to the analysis, H2R Market Research. The net Return on Investment was $64 for every dollar spent. The campaign was developed by PP+K Advertising.

“I’m incredibly proud of our Marketing team for taking a true Tampa Bay treasure – our outstanding craft beer industry – and creating an award-winning campaign around it,” said Santiago Corrada, president and CEO of Visit Tampa Bay. “Our ‘Bay Crafted’ campaign proved to be the perfect combination of time and talent, just like the craft beer that inspired it.”

Also in the winner circle at the Adrian Awards was “Winter’s Obituary,” which won a Gold Adrian Award in the Magazine or Newspaper-Consumer category. The tongue-in-cheek take-down of Ol’ Man Winter that ran in the Chicago Tribune in March. The ad announced the passing of Winter, who still remembered fondly his trip to Tampa Bay in 1977, and urged Chicagoans to celebrate his passing with a trip to Tampa Bay in his memory.

A Silver Adrian Award in the Radio category went to “Sounds of Summer,” a radio campaign that ran on stations across Florida promoting Tampa Bay through the soundscape of the region in the summer: the roar of rollercoasters at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, the sounds of animals at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo and the splashing of water at The Florida Aquarium.

“Tampa Bay’s entire tourism industry can be proud of the work our marketing team did in 2015,” Corrada said. “Major industry awards like the Adrians show the world that Tampa Bay has arrived as an important travel destination.”

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About Visit Tampa Bay

Visit Tampa Bay encourages adventurous travelers to unlock our destination’s trove of unique treasures. We are a not-for-profit corporation that works with more than 750 partners to tell the world the story of our home – the hip, urban heart of the Gulf Coast of Florida.