In a Golden State of Mind with Visit California

Warm weather, warm welcome.

Visit California is a nonprofit organization dedicated to maximizing the tourism experience in one of America’s largest - and most popular - states. Though the organization’s home base is out of Sacramento, they support 17 Welcome Centers spread across Northern, Central, and Southern California.

Being such a huge state, both in literal geographic terms and in cultural impact, providing a standout tourism experience is no light task! Visit California’s website itself provides a wide range of content including blogs, visitor’s guides, podcasts and videos, all in effort to prepare prospective tourists and garner excitement around planning a visit.

But, the work of Visit California isn’t just limited to the digital experience. We’ve provided custom branded displays for the Visit California and California Tourism brands since 2013, primarily for indoor uses. In the past couple of years as the organization has grown and come to support more event initiatives and increase brand awareness, their need for promotional displays has grown, too.

Bolstering brand awareness.

Some of the first items we created for Visit California were custom branded table covers. Printed tablecloths are one of the most essential tools a brand can have during their in-person marketing or outreach efforts.

Visit California has used their table covers for a multitude of uses, whether they’re covering tables inside of one of their welcome centers, or they’re building brand recognition at any number of events, fairs, conferences or expositions they attend.

For an industry that annually contributes over $100 billion to California’s economy, presentation is key. As their marketing strategy evolved, this necessitated them to expand their needs beyond branded table covers.

And expand they did heading into the summer of 2019, when Visit California was planning to help host IPW, an annual nationwide trade show held by the U.S. Travel Association. They were looking to do something big to kick off the occasion and truly show California tourism at its best among the thousands of other organizations that would be in attendance.

 

That something would be an activation called the ‘California Plaza,’ a mini festival at the entry point of the trade show inside of the Anaheim Convention Center. The event would run for the duration of the six-day trade show, and would feature “unique demonstrations and entertainment, engaging activities and an awe-inspiring build out to educate IPW attendees about each partner destination and inspire big dreams about travel to the Golden State.”

For this event alone, we helped provide over 50 customized display pieces, including inflatable arches, table covers, and flags. The 4 inflatable arches, each standing 15 feet wide by 10 feet tall, marked entry points for the California Plaza.

Shown above: Visit California's 2D proof design to the final rendering of their custom inflatable arch.

“Nearly every attendee will pass through the plaza multiple times a day throughout the convention, garnering numerous impressions from worldwide representatives,” reads a press release from Visit California’s website.

Other displays like the 12-foot-tall custom advertising flags served various uses at many points throughout the plaza, such as Welcome, Check-In, and more.

Creating a lasting impact.

Over the years we’ve created over 100 custom branded displays for Visit California. However, these displays for the California Plaza event at IPW 2019 were critical for the tourism brand in particular.

At an event with other tourism brands from all over the country competing for attention - and, subsequently, income opportunity - placing these pieces at key areas and activities throughout the sponsored event ensured that Visit California’s brand would stand out, be remembered by attendees, and most importantly, cement their reputation that they knew how to give people a memorable experience they’d enjoy.

That being the motivation behind this robust industry, we were able to help Visit California fulfill what they set out to do during one of their most critical initiatives of the year.

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