Congratulations to the 2021 TIAK Marketing Award Winners!
TIAK Marketing Awards focus on overall marketing initiatives and recognize state-level winners only. See this year’s winners listed below with some of the judge’s comments included for each submission.
People’s Choice
Visit Emporia won in the People’s Choice category determined by conference attendees at the event for its repurposing of newspaper stands into visitor guide stands.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
Best in Show
Visit Kansas City Kansas was awarded Best in Show for its KCK Taco Trail which highlighted Kansas City’s cultural diversity, amazing and authentic food scene, and a point of local pride.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Love this! Love the objective. Great concept and timing. Well executed. I appreciate the planning, execution, inclusion and reporting. Very well done. And every time I get fed a social ad, it makes me hungry.
- We think of KC as steaks, but not tacos. Very innovative. Great job! Love that there were rewards at the end, and thank you for the stats. Great way to think outside the box.
- I love the alliteration on this – Taco Trail is catchy and memorable, and it’s a theme that so many of your constituents can get behind! Wonderful event and promotion.
Visitor Guide (designed in-house)
Experience El Dorado won in the small budget category for their rebranded guide aimed at attracting young families.
Click here to learn more about this winning entry.
- Bright. Engaging. Nice showcase of your community’s assets and experiences.
- Vibrant colors and design – great improvement and provides a very attractive impression of the El Dorado community to its readers.
- Great job. Great addition to your overall marketing changes.
Merriam Visitors Bureau received bragging rights in the medium budget category for its annual Community and Visitor Guide.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Love the cover! I love the kids games in the guide – how cool!
- Love the strategic moves you made to accommodate both the community and advertisers due to the pandemic. The easy to see buttons on the landing page are great – allowing visitors the easiest methods through which to request a guidebook! The colors and design are lively and refreshing – always a good one, Merriam!
- Lots of useful content, well organized. I would liked to have seen clickable links throughout for more information.
Visit Topeka was the large budget winner for its visual storytelling guide highlighting authentic Topeka history and experiences.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Great showcase for Topeka. Exciting. Engaging. Useful.
- Love the cover! The images and the stories are excellent in this guide.
- Excellent visitor guide updates – the reader truly gets a feeling for the Topeka community through strategic storytelling.
Visitor Guide (outsourced)
Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau received the medium budget trophy for their visitor guide featuring all-new professional photography, including from the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Congratulations on your new guide after 5 years. Well done! It looks like you have captured your small town feel as well as your ‘cowboy’ ways. Good job.
- Love the new visitors guide for Abilene! Working with New Boston proves to be a wonderful choice. Updating the website and brand standards allows you to keep a modernized presence in front of potential visitors.
- The guide goes well with your overall new look. Great job.
Visit Kansas City Kansas won in the large budget for their user-friendly magazine-style guide showcasing all there is to do and see in Kansas City, Kansas.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- The animation is attention getting. Lots of content, but easy to navigate. Highly interactive, and useful. Nice utilization of new brand, but would have liked to have seen the illustration overlays used in places.
- Really like how the KCK brand is emphasized throughout the guide. Also, love the impact the 2 page spreads have.
- Excellent visitor guide updates – the reader truly gets a feeling for the KC KS community through strategic storytelling. It is colorful and LIVELY!
Online Marketing
The entries for the Online Marketing category include digital advertising, social media, e-mail marketing, website.
Caldwell Chamber of Commerce (tied with City of Great Bend CVB) was recognized in the small budget category for its Chisholm Trail Fest video.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Beautiful breathtaking shots! Makes everyone wanting to be a cowboy!
- I LOVE this video!!! The planner/writer/videographer/producer should be recognized for this excellent work!
- Love this clip, captures the cowboy spirit, everyone wants to be a cowboy! Very well done!
City of Great Bend CVB (tied with Caldwell Chamber of Commerce) was recognized in the small budget category for its Wetlands Wildlife Virtual Festival.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Love that you made this virtual! You pivoted well! Everyone got a great education!
- Love the collaboration here, partnering together with various organizations to move the W & W Festival online! Engaging 265 birders all over the US is a definite pro of doing this event virtually.
- Great pivot in challenging times! Engaging website, made me want to register. Like the social campaign. Looks like good engagement.
Merriam Visitors Bureau received honors in the medium budget category for its new website.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Thank you for the stats on the increase of your page views!! Love the “locally made” tab!!! Visitors Guide button at top of page and VERY VISIBLE! Good job! Great Sweat Equity in this project, I’m sure.
- LOVE the new website design! It is super easy to navigate, highly engaging visuals & color.
- Great site. Robust content, easy to navigate. On those links that took me to an other site, I might have preferred opening a new window.
Visit Kansas City Kansas received recognition in the large budget category for its KCK Taco Trail.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Love this! Love the objective. Great concept and timing. Well executed. I appreciate the planning, execution, inclusion and reporting. Very well done. And every time I get fed a social ad, it makes me hungry.
- We think of KC as steaks, but not tacos. Very innovative. Great job! Love that there were rewards at the end, and thank you for the stats. Great way to think outside the box.
- I love the alliteration on this – Taco Trail is catchy and memorable, and it’s a theme that so many of your constituents can get behind! Wonderful event and promotion.
Event
The entries for the Event category include various events, meetings or conferences.
Wild West Country garnered recognition in the small budget category for its Rooster Roundup hunting season event.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Love this partnership – great way to draw folks in to get more bang for their buck!
- Very cool way to engage with hunters as a way to promote the area and bring awareness to hunting season.
- This contest has been going on for years! Great job on continuing! Where is it being advertised and how many people are participating? (Great information to share with the judges).
Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau received honors in the medium budget category for their Eisenhower Marathon.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- This sounds like a wonderful event! I love that you enlisted many partners. I really like that you got the HS involved. I also like that you included some stats about where your racers were from.
- Relaunching the Eisenhower Marathon was a great opportunity to reach a new audience and bring valuable visitors to the area. I love the partnership between the race and the CVB, each focusing on their own strengths (event planning the race & marketing).
- Nice coordinated effort. Website gave me everything I needed to register and compete. Graphics supported brand.
Visit Topeka received large budget honors for its Thunder Over the Heartland airshow.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- An exciting promotion well executed. Love the detailed analytics. Impressive results. Great ROI.
- I really like the partnerships you have with your locals, pooling your marketing dollars to stretch your budget is simply smart business! Well done!
- Thanks for providing the clear analytics! This was obviously a successful campaign. I love the event logo, the social campaign is cohesive and followed a clear strategy = awareness and promotion! Excellent work here to grow the event attendee rate!
Print Marketing
The entries for the Print category include newspaper ads, magazine ads, brochures, direct mail, inserts, anything print.
Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty Association won in the small budget category for its Peace Treaty poster.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- LOVE this poster! Well done, I can see why it’s a collectible. Very vibrant, love the colors.
- Definitely accomplishes the goal of being an advertisement that is “frame-worthy”! Lovely colors and imagery. I wonder if a local artist could be used in the future – could also add a point of promotion to the poster that can be promoted.
- Love the colors! Very vibrant!! I can see why it is a collectors item.
Newton Convention & Visitors Bureau was the medium budget winner for their children’s activity book.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Get to the kids and you get to the parents!! Wonderful job!!! Love the way you partner with your local artist!
- LOVE the purposeful connection here between Newton’s history and its children! Also love that CVB took time to research history featured on each page. I hope the opportunity to pick one of these up was promoted widely so community members could take advantage of this unique engagement campaign.
- Great project. Entertaining, educational. Did you do a social media campaign to engage families outside the community? Well done.
Visit Kansas City Kansas received the large budget win for their new brand, logo and print ads.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- High energy. Appealing. Playful. Inviting. Great job of maintaining brand consistency across audiences. Well done!
- Beautiful and well done. I like how they are themed to different interests. Great job.
- Love the colors in this redesign. The new logo and messaging is strategic and catchy. Great work guiding the creatives – the ads were effective!
Community Awareness
The entries for Community Awareness category include community events and promotions targeting locals.
Experience El Dorado was honored in the small budget category for its Experience El Dorado campaign.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Great job on consistency look of your brand. You know who you are and you are rocking this! You didn’t say how much this look increased your web hits or increased your visitors, hopefully we will hear about that next year!
- Great use of budget to update the El Dorado brand across multiple channels. The updated visitor guide is colorful and vibrant. The imagery throughout the campaign is clear and strategic – portraying community members in the same demographic as the target audience was fantastic. Your internal team did a great job planning and executing this community awareness campaign.
- Great job on a total overhaul on your marketing message!
Visit Emporia won in the medium budget category for its repurposing of newspaper stands into visitor guide stands.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Great way to upscale newspaper stands! No need for investment in inventory. I wish you would have included how many you placed around town.
- LOVE the creativity with this community awareness project! Repurposing old newspaper stands is environmentally-friendly + what a unique avenue through which to get your message out there. I also love the tagline and visuals.
- Great way to up-cycle! Love that you found a new avenue to display your guides.
Visit Topeka received the large budget category win for their “Inclusive Topeka” initiative.
Click here to learn more about this entry.
- Love this on so many levels. Courageous, significant and arresting message. Well designed and written. Great multi-cross channel distribution. Great earned media – Wow!
- Love the branding here. Great ideas to get all partners to participate. I also feel like this was a great way to educate the community.
- Loved the bright colors, great way to welcome everyone to Topeka!
Thank you to all our participants for sharing their creativity, and to all our judges who diligently reviewed each entry. Will you be the next TIAK Marketing Award winner?