Durham Tourism Apple Adventure Ad

The Durham Tourism Apple Adventure single advertisement was featured in the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s (LCBO) Food & Drink magazine in Spring 2023. The magazine is available for free to LCBO consumers shopping in-store and online as a digital flipbook. It focuses on food and beverage related content including seasonal recipes, cocktail-making tips, new food and beverage trends, and alcoholic beverages available for purchase.

The ad focused on an apple tourism theme and encouraged residents to visit Durham Region’s local cideries and apple wineries, reached new audiences within Ontario, and further strengthened Durham’s position as the Apple Capital of Canada. A QR code was included to drive traffic to an apple adventure landing page featuring additional apple destinations including apple growers and orchards offering pick-your-own and local bakeries serving famous apple fritters.

Audience demographics for Food & Drink align well with Durham Tourism’s audience. According to 2022 data obtained by Food & Drink, more than 2.7 million people read each issue with 2 million being the primary grocery shopper. Approximately 54 per cent of the total audience lives in Toronto—less than an hour’s drive away from Durham—and 58 per cent of the audience is female with the average age being 47. Key indicators demonstrate that the current Durham Tourism audience is more than 70 per cent female with 42 per cent ages 35-54, and that this group acts as the household decision-maker on domestic tourism opportunities for their families.

Since launch, the landing page for this campaign has been viewed more than 2200 times, 1800 of which are unique views. Average view time is a long four minutes and 34 seconds, showing users are interested in detailed information and that the information is highly relevant. More than 460 click throughs from the landing page to individual businesses have happened.

The LCBO requires that photography of alcoholic products featured in an ad must be available for consumers to purchase at the LCBO. Six out of seven Durham Region cideries and apple wineries did not offer products at the LCBO. To meet this requirement, one cidery was featured in a photograph and all seven locations were featured in a text list with a map. This solution provided an opportunity to promote several local businesses that may not have been able to access this large and ideal audience due to the criteria to advertise with the magazine.

A photoshoot was arranged at the featured cidery in January 2023. Planning was required to ensure that the photography was staged for spring, so the setting was limited to indoors, scenes with windows were avoided, lighting techniques were considered, and décor and attire were staged.

This advertisement kicked off a long-term Durham Tourism apple campaign. Durham offers an abundance of apple destinations for visitors to enjoy year-round and continued promotion is in the planning stages to keep the excitement surrounding apple tourism strong. Future promotions will focus on the family-friendly apple destinations including local farms, orchards, and bakeries offering freshly made apple fritters.