SMART Award for Creative Marketing in Tourism

Please note that this award is no longer being presented at the Vermont Tourism Summit. See our current award offerings.

About the Award

The SMART Award honors a tourism-related business, region, association, special event, travel journalist or other, which has leveraged the Vermont Brand through creative, innovative and customer focused marketing. The award recognizes an ongoing commitment to Vermont’s tourism industry and the recipient is selected by an independent panel of marketing experts assembled by the Vermont Tourism Summit (VTS) Board of Directors. The award is presented at the Vermont Tourism Summit.

Criteria

Entries will be reviewed on an individual basis to determine how well the entrant addressed the following criteria:

• STRATEGY: Clear objectives.
• CREATIVITY: Project design, development, implementation, message delivery and originality; selection of media or promotional vehicle, creativity, targeting markets, use of content, etc.
• INNOVATION: Utilization of a new approach, developing new markets, unconventional campaigns to old markets, or pioneering use of technology, cost savings or leverage investment techniques, tying in to traditional media campaigns, etc.
• RESULTS: Achievement of stated objectives. For example, visitor count increases, increase in market share, increased ROI, reduced unit costs, reader, viewer or listener impressions, economic impact, and/or related data, achieving extended visitor stays, increased visitor satisfaction, greater distribution of content, etc.
• BRAND: Demonstrated understanding of Vermont’s brand value by incorporating or building upon Vermont’s brand identity in marketing campaigns.

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Past Winners

The SMART Awards were introduced at the 2013 Vermont Travel Industry Conference. Here are the recipients since its inception: 

2019 - 2021:

This award was not presented in 2019, 2020, or 2021. 

2018:

Jay Peak Resort "Employee Recruitment and Recognition" Campaign
Jay Peak Resort realized that the most important challenge facing the resort was attracting great team-members. The goal of the campaign was to keep current employees critical to the operation. They began with the integration of more than $1 million on wage modifications in the form of salary increases, the creation of various bonus packages, and retention pay-outs focused on keeping their core team in place. This initial effort was symbolized by the creation of our Jay Peak Root Down logo which was meant to symbolize the strong connection, despite the difficulties of the past several years, that still existed between our core staff and the mountain itself. This logo would be the touchstone (and act as sort of a lodestone) for all of their communications to existing staff, potential recruits and team-member gatherings going forward.

Work Doesn't Have To Be A Four Letter Word from Jay Peak on Vimeo.

They used the logo on gear designed just for employees, stickers made just for team members and staff event communications. This brand stamp was intentionally kept off of retail items being sold to the public (despite a strong desire for them) as a means of creating value and strengthening the bond between resort and employee. 

For employee recruitment, Jay Peak put in place a marketing and brand campaign aimed at the attraction of new team members that began with new ad creative and then reimagined their standard Job Fairs, and took these events off site and included live music, food, beer and used the entire senior team to interact with potential team members. 

The development of a video series aimed at attracting new employees focused on what makes working at Jay Peak special—their new Guestimonial series called out special team members recognized by guests, and their Good News Friday program sends out snippets of good news relating to team members as they close each week.

2017:

New England Inns & Resorts "Vermont Lodging Property Dynamic Remarketing" Campaign
The goal of the campaign was to promote nearly 50 small to medium-size lodging properties in Vermont by providing highly targeted online banner advertisements, customized to the individual property, to qualified travelers identified as showing interested in that specific property.  

Over the life of the campaign, NEIRA delivered 500,000 property-specific ads to qualified users, achieving a 56.88% click conversion rate and a return rate above 45%.
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2016:

Vermont Arts Council "Vermont.Arts.Everywhere." Campaign
The “Vermont.Arts.Everywhere.” campaign by the Vermont Arts Council was designed to strengthen the arts as a core component of the Vermont brand. 

“We want to ensure that when visitors and residents think about Vermont, in addition to our beautiful landscape, skiing, fall foliage, and maple syrup, they think about the arts.” – Kira Bacon, Communications and Outreach Manager at the Vermont Arts Council. “We believe that a unique quality of Vermont is that the state’s cultural assets are not centralized in one or two urban locations – they are everywhere!” 

To promote this concept, the Vermont Arts Council enlisted the help of Mondo Mediaworks, a Brattleboro, Vt. based marketing agency specializing in video production, to produce a series of fun and quirky videos which were promoted on social media. 

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2015:

WCAX "Leafie" Campaign
The “Leafie” campaign invited WCAX viewers and followers to submit pictures of fall foliage from around the region. WCAX collected hundreds of photos and shared them using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and television. The campaign peaked at over 30,000 likes, comments and shares. 

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2014:

Jay Peak Resort "Anthem" Campaign
Jay Peak Resort’s 2013/14 marketing campaign “Anthem” creates an emotional connection with existing Jay Peak’ers, inspires new guests to discover Jay Peak, and showcases the resort assets with a focus on the experience. 

Honorable mention was given to Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce for “Almost There”, an unscripted and unrehearsed documentary style short film used as a destination marketing tool which portrays why people "come for the mountains" and ultimately, "stay for the valley."

“Both the Jay Peak Anthem and the Mad River Valley videos capture the spirit of their communities; they address what it means to be - and to be inspired in - these parts of Vermont.” shared 2014 SMART Award judge, Jen Butson, communications director at the Vermont Dept. of Tourism and Marketing. “Drawing on this emotion made for content that is perfectly ripe for social media: those with affinity for these locations or the ideals they aspire to, were compelled to share with their social communities.” 

2013/14 Jay Peak Resort Winter "Anthem" Video from Origin Design + Communications on Vimeo.

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2013:

Ski Vermont "Check In to Win" Campaign
"..An ambitious statewide program that encourages exploration and promotes cross-brand businesses through a location-based campaign, then executes through multiple social media platforms. It smartly leverages social tools; Facebook and Twitter and weekly eblasts to Vermont’s loyal base of skiers and snowboarders; and showcases Vermont ski resorts and partner businesses all working together toward a common goal,” Rich Beattie, executive digital editor of Travel + Leisure Magazine and a judge for the SMART awards said.

Melissa Pasanen "@TasteofVermont" Twitter Account
“Melissa’s Twitter effort is everything you want this award to embody and more. Though she is a professional journalist well known in Vermont media, this Twitter effort is not promoting anything but love of Vermont and Vermont food and culture. This is her personal passion and she’s sharing it with the Twitterverse,” Commissioner of Tourism and Marketing Megan Smith said. “By blending sweet retweets about great Vermont edibles and events with links to articles in the Burlington Free Press, Vermont Life and VPR radio commentaries on Vermont and other topics, @TasteofVermont is a knowledgeable source of info on food trends and issues both in Vermont and more broadly halos back on the leading edge of Vermont’s food-farming brand attribute.”

Tweets by @TasteofVermont