Kansas Tourism Wins National Marketing Awards

TOPEKA – Kansas Tourism recently was presented two awards from the 31^st Annual North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) award competition. The “Kansas Brand Anthem Commercial” took Silver in the Destination Video Category. The “To The Story Campaign” took Bronze in the Creative Marketing Campaign Category.

“Kansas Tourism continues to raise the bar in how we market our state to visitors,” Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce David Toland said. “These high-quality, inspirational videos help us share our history, our people and our incredible places to visit across the state, showing the world that Kansas is the best place to do business, to explore and to call home.”

The “Kansas Brand Anthem Commercial” is an inspirational 30-second broadcast video that highlights the real Kansas experience travelers can expect as they adventure across the state. The commercial ran in spring 2022 in-state and in several surrounding states, reaching up to 158 million people. Visitor traffic to TravelKS.com also increased during the lifetime of the commercial campaign with a 37.5% increase in pageviews.

The “To The Stories Campaign” is a series of four- to five-minute videos that take an inside look at the unique faces and places of Kansas. Stories in the series include Distilleries, Cosmosphere, Mountain Biking, A Cowboy State, The Smoke Show, Secret Kansas, Kansas Racing and Capturing Kansas: The Gordon Parks Legacy. This well received campaign has generated to date over 68,000 pageviews on TravelKS.com and has potentially been seen by over 4.5 million individuals.

In addition to the two Kansas Tourism awards, Visit Topeka took home Gold for “Topeka Dino Days” in the Creative Marketing Campaign Category.

“Seeing Kansas take three of the nine awards given to Destination Marketing Organizations speaks volumes to the type of content being produced to encourage travel to and throughout our state,” Kansas Tourism Director Bridgette Jobe said. “Kansas continues to grow in recognition as an awe-inspiring visitor destination, and these awards are prime examples of the quality marketing we are accomplishing.”  

The NATJA awards are designed to exemplify the best of the best in travel journalism and destination marketing from organizations in the United States, Canada, Mexico and internationally. Judges for the competition include award-winning newspaper and magazine editors as well as educators across the journalism disciplines. A complete list of awardees can be found here.