Union Pacific Wonder + Wander Campaign
THE CHALLENGE
Union Pacific Railroad has had a long-standing history with America’s national parks, beginning in the early 1900’s when the railroad allowed travelers access to pristine landscapes that were otherwise virtually impossible to visit. Today, Union Pacific continues to support the parks through an ongoing partnership with the National Park Foundation. Union Pacific partnered with Geile/Leon to concept a theme in support of the partnership, and develop a strategic campaign that would not only expand awareness of Union Pacific’s relationship to the parks, but also drive younger generations to national parks.
THE SOLUTION
Working with Union Pacific and the National Park Foundation teams, G/L helped develop a theme for the partnership and call to action for the promotional campaign. G/L also designed a paid social media campaign in support of the “Wonder + Wander” photo contest. The campaign would effectively generate expanded awareness of the partnership, and encourage younger generations in 51 target markets to visit national parks. G/L developed the overarching strategy for the paid social campaign, including the construction of custom target audiences and the concept for ad creative.
Campaign Tactics and Creative
G/ L produced co-branded ad creative and messaging designed to promote the intergenerational theme of the contest, as well as the relationship between Union Pacific and the National Park Foundation. Ads drove users to a contest website where they would be able to submit a photo entry in hopes of winning a free annual parks pass.
THE RESULT
A/B creative testing was implemented to determine the imagery and messaging that would best engage each of the campaign’s target audiences with the contest. The campaign’s primary metric for success was the number of successful photo submissions received from social media users. G/L conducted daily monitoring and weekly reporting to identify the ongoing campaign optimizations (in terms of budget, audience, creative and/or platform) needed to meet or exceed the industry benchmark for conversion rate. The Wonder + Wander paid social campaign achieved 1,002 total conversions, successfully driving over half of all photo submissions received and exceeding the 5.6% conversion rate benchmark.
