A New Marketing Campaign -- With Art Philadelphia™ -- Launches To Promote The Visual Arts

PHILADELPHIA, May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Just in time for the opening of the Barnes Foundation's Philadelphia campus on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the City of Philadelphia, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) and 14 other civic and cultural partners today launched the city's first-ever coordinated and sustained visual arts marketing campaign called With Art Philadelphia™. The two-year, $2 million (to date) campaign aims to leverage the energy of the Barnes Foundation opening in order to generate sustained attention on one of the world's great art destinations, draw new and engaged audiences and spur overnight stays from visitors worldwide. With Art encourages visitors to curate their own Philadelphia art experiences—something they can do easily on the campaign's new highly interactive website and main call to action, visitphilly.com/withart.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120515/PH07671 )

"Philadelphia has always had great art—some we collect; some we make," said Meryl Levitz, president and CEO, GPTMC. "The fact is there's never been a better time to come to Philadelphia to see and appreciate art in all its many forms. Visitors have the opportunity to curate their own individual art experiences, and there are so many experiences to be had both inside museums and beyond their walls."

The Marketing:

The integrated campaign aims to get Philadelphia's art message out through a full range of marketing tactics: advertising, an interactive website, social media and PR.

• Advertising: Focused on print publications and online outlets, the ads describe a variety of ideal art-focused days and nights in Philadelphia and encourage visitors to customize their own experiences on the "most artistic mile in the country." The first round of ads runs from May through December in the key markets of Philadelphia, New York, Washington, DC and Baltimore. The ads will also appear in national publications and some of their regional editions. Outlets include: Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Ebony, Bon Appetit, Glamour, Vogue and Conde Nast Traveler.
• Website: Joining GPTMC's network of popular websites, visitphilly.com/withart shows off the city's vast and varied arts scene through vibrant photography, renowned artworks and strong interactive elements. On the highly visual site, visitors can travel along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with the help of an interactive map, curate their own Philadelphia art itinerary or print out a suggested itinerary around various art themes, peruse blockbuster event and exhibit listings, find hotel accommodations and more.
• Social Media: Art content will appear across Visit Philly's already strong social media platforms, including on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Foodspotting and others. GPTMC has embarked on an innovative program with Foursquare that will enable visitors to check in to masterpieces at art museums around town beginning in late May. Later this summer, GPTMC will host a "Curate Your Own Experience" contest on Pinterest. The promotion will encourage participants to create their own boards with their ideal Philly art weekends and share the ideas with their own networks.
• Public Relations: GPTMC's PR team has been pitching the Barnes and the city's larger arts story for months now and will continue to do so in 2012. In addition, the team is constantly developing new arts content to ensure that journalists have the tools they need to tell Philly's story.
• Trade: The Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau will promote the campaign in consumer and trade advertising, at international trade shows, through all of their social media outlets and during visiting journalist trips.

GPTMC has formed a collaborative group of marketers—Red Tettemer, Buzz Marketing, MayoSeitz Media, Rockstar Entertainment and CultureWorks—to ensure the campaign reaches its key audiences.

The Themes:

The campaign will tell Philadelphia's robust story along five themes:

• Visual Arts: Philadelphia's creative sector is rich and diverse, encompassing a wide range of experiences that With Art Philadelphia will promote.
• The Parkway: The Benjamin Franklin Parkway, running from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will be made even more magnificent with the addition of the Barnes Foundation.
• Gardens: The campaign will showcase the city's many green assets.
• Education: Barnes believed in the transformative power of the arts, so the campaign will shine a light on the major art-focused colleges and arts education programs for children and adults alike.
• Philadelphia: Philadelphia's creativity goes beyond the visual arts to include its food, its shops, its neighborhoods and its diverse people—all of which will be highlighted as part of With Art.

Widening The Circle:

As the campaign expands, it will aim to include even more art venues, programs and events in neighborhoods throughout the region. Currently, the collaborative is working with theartblog.org, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours and InLiquid, among others. 

The With Art Philadelphia™ collaborative is a first-of-its-kind partnership to position Philadelphia among the world's great art destinations and to increase visitation to the region from around the world. The groups contributing financial and other resources to the campaign are: the City of Philadelphia, Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology), Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, The Lenfest Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Knight Foundation, PNC and PECO.  

For more information about travel to Philadelphia, visit visitphilly.com or uwishunu.com, where you can build itineraries; search event calendars; see photos and videos; view interactive maps; sign up for newsletters; listen to Hear Philly, an online radio station about what to see and do in the region; book hotel reservations and more. Or, call the Independence Visitor Center, located in Historic Philadelphia, at (800) 537-7676.

SOURCE Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation