Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia \u2014 an Anheuser-Busch resort property on the James River \u2014 is one of the Mid-Atlantic region\u2019s premier conference and leisure destinations: 16 dedicated meeting rooms certified by the International Association of Conference Centers, three championship golf courses, a European-style spa, award-winning culinary staff, and within easy reach of Busch Gardens, Water Country USA, and Colonial Williamsburg. Marketing a property with that range of offerings to audiences as different as Fortune 500 meeting planners, defense industry procurement officers, and family vacation travelers requires not one campaign but several \u2014 each speaking with precision to a distinctly different set of motivations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Serving as creative director and account executive for the Kingsmill account as a contractor through The Meridian Group, I developed and produced a segmented print advertising campaign system that addressed each audience on its own terms while maintaining the visual coherence and brand authority of the Kingsmill identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the corporate meetings market, the campaign led with the pressure and consequence that meeting planners carry: \u201cMedical Breakthroughs Don\u2019t Happen Overnight. But Your Next Meeting Can.\u201d and \u201cHow Some Fortune 500 Companies Got to Be So Fortunate.\u201d \u2014 direct, confident lines that spoke to the decision-maker\u2019s professional responsibility rather than the resort\u2019s amenities. The amenities were listed in the body copy. The headline earned the read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defense and government market campaign was perhaps the most conceptually precise piece in the collection. Defense-related groups meeting at a resort need discretion as much as they need conference facilities \u2014 and \u201cWe Can Keep a Secret\u201d acknowledged that need directly, with a supporting piece listing defense industry clients whose identities were, of course, redacted. It\u2019s a campaign that works precisely because it demonstrates the thing it promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the family leisure market, the campaign leveraged Kingsmill\u2019s Travel Channel Top Ten Family Resort recognition \u2014 \u201cYou\u2019re Number One at this Travel Channel Top Ten Family Resort\u201d \u2014 turning a third-party credential into a consumer-facing headline that did the persuasion work efficiently and credibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photography direction for both the meetings and accommodations campaigns was my responsibility, conducted on location at the resort. The conference room imagery, the resort property photography, and the accommodations visuals were all directed to serve the specific campaign they appeared in \u2014 the meetings photography communicating professional-grade facility quality, the leisure photography communicating the warmth and ease of a family destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n