Visit Tampa Bay earns top honors for 2016 marketing campaigns

“Henry” and Greybeard win for creativity; Corrada honored for leadership

NEW YORK CITY (Feb. 28, 2017) – At a black-tie gala dinner dubbed the Oscars of tourism marketing last Tuesday, Visit Tampa Bay earned four Adrian Awards for its work marketing the Tampa Bay area as Florida’s most diverse destination for travelers from across the country and around the world.

President & CEO Santiago Corrada was named one of the Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization. His co-winners included travel industry leaders from South Africa to Silicon Valley. Each honoree was recognized for being an outstanding leader whose strategies get results and have earned the respect of their peers in the travel industry. Corrada was the only tourism leader from Florida honored.

HSMAI, the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International, presents the awards each year.

Visit Tampa Bay earned a Gold, two Silvers, and a Bronze Adrian for its 2016 marketing efforts. The winning projects included:

• Gold Award, Public Relations: “Henry Brings Business to Tampa Bay,” an animated video that features “Henry,” a meeting planner, and explains the far-reaching financial impact the convention and meeting industry has in Tampa Bay. Meetings and conventions account for about 35 percent of Tampa Bay’s nearly 22 million visitors a year and spend more, on average, than leisure travelers.

• Silver Award, Advertising: Greybeard the Tampa Bay Business Pirate, a humor-filled meetings campaign playing on Tampa Bay’s historic Gasparilla festival and love of all things pirate that featured Greybeard – a bearded, suit-wearing pirate – pitching Tampa Bay as the perfect place for meeting planners to schedule a “parlay” for their association members.
• Silver Award, Advertising: Canada Takeover, a two-week-long event on radio and social media that culminated in Toronto’s Air Canada Center during a hockey game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning. While the Bolts were lighting up the ice against the Leafs, Tampa Bay images filled the center’s screens, billboards and even the ice in front of 18,000 hockey fans.

• Bronze, Digital Marketing: “Florida’s Most Culinary Treasures,” a video project featuring some of Tampa Bay’s most notable chefs, such as Greg Baker of The Refinery and Eric Lackey of Ulele and their mouth-watering creations.

“I’m incredibly proud of our Visit Tampa Bay team for showing every day the incredible value tourism brings to our region every day,” said Santiago Corrada, president and CEO of Visit Tampa Bay. “Our ‘Henry’ and Greybeard projects both shine a spotlight on the importance of the meetings industry, while the other awards show the way our campaigns drive home the fantastic experiences available in Tampa Bay.”

VISIT FLORIDA’s 2016 London Takeover, an integrated marketing campaign that included using wraps to turn four iconic London taxis into rolling Visit Tampa Bay billboards, also won a Gold for Digital Marketing.

“Everyone connected to Tampa Bay’s tourism industry can be proud of the work our team did in 2016,” Corrada said. “Major awards like the Adrians show the world that Visit Tampa Bay has some of the best marketing minds producing some of the best campaigns in the world.”

Last year, Visit Tampa Bay won a Platinum and Gold award for its Baycrafted campaign featuring the destination’s growing craft beer industry. It also won awards for Winter’s Obituary, a tongue-in-cheek adieu to the cold and snow published in the Chicago Tribune, and for Sounds of Summer radio advertisement.

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About Visit Tampa Bay

Visit Tampa Bay encourages adventurous travelers to unlock our destination’s trove of unique treasures. We are a not-for-profit corporation that works with more than 750 partners to tell the world the story of our home – the hip, urban heart of the Gulf Coast of Florida.