Tourism Vaughan Video PSA

Tourism Vaughan, the destination marketing and development organization (DMO) for the city of Vaughan, officially launched in January 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic shortly to follow, all marketing and promotional campaigns were put on hold to focus on supporting local businesses, providing PPE, and sourcing federal and provincial funding programs to share with operators. As such, Tourism Vaughan only started to market to tourists living at least 40 kilometres or more away in 2021. It has been identified that Vaughan, as a city, does not have suitable branding to assist itself as a destination. Of the many attractions, festivals, restaurants, trails and events that we have, many are believed to be ‘part of Toronto.’ Furthermore, if Vaughan is known to potential visitors, the only identifiable draw is Canada’s Wonderland, which hinders the opportunity to generate overnight stays and position the destination as a getaway worth more than just a day trip.

Tourism Vaughan worked with a private-sector business, NG Media, to provide public service announcement (PSA) production and traffic support. One 30 second video PSA was created, with a focus on highlighting the breadth of destination activities there are to do in Vaughan. This commercial would be live across Ontario for 8 weeks between July until September, hitting peak tourism time to encourage visitation. In addition, the video would have a minimum of 1,000 airings (both daytime and nighttime). The commercial would also be available across broadcasters Rogers and Shaw.

Ownership of the video would reside with Tourism Vaughan and would also be repurposed for use on social media platforms and website pages.

The video PSA highlighted the breadth of entertainment in Vaughan: attractions and midways, hotels, restaurants, nature trails, art, and festivals. It was targeted towards individuals between the ages of 25-45 with young children, approximately between the ages of 5-12. This is seen in the numerous shots of children and families playing together.

Feedback has been unanimously positive from both partners and viewers of the ad. With potential reach of over 900,000, this video has allowed for a strong awareness campaign within the province to draw visitation to our city.

Video link: https://youtu.be/KH2Izia1ses