Haywood County Embrace Unusual

Haywood County TDA

Insight: If there’s one big takeaway from 2020, it’s that nothing went according to plan. Work was at your kitchen counter, school was your living room, you forgot what people looked like from the nose down, and going to the store had a vibe reminiscent of what probably happened during the months before the first scene of The Walking Dead.

Vision: To help Haywood County navigate this strange new reality, we invited folks to unlock their front doors, gather up their work computer/school supplies/various children and pets, and #EmbraceUnusual in North Carolina’s Smoky mountains.

We delivered the Embrace Unusual campaign through a comprehensive mix of traditional and digital tactics, including a series of 15-second videos that showed there was fun to be had in those challenging times. Here, they could rent a cabin, log on to the WIFI, and take their conference calls with a background they didn’t have to upload to Zoom. And they could do it all in an uncrowded, quiet place full of surprising adventuresin a place that’s always been a little unusual at heart.

Outcome: Record-breaking visitation levels resulted from the campaign at a time when many travel destinations suffered serious downturns.