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April 14, 2016

How to Land a Major Marketing Award Nomination: Make a Turkey Fly!

Strategic Marketing and Digital PR Award Nomination

“Turkey in the Terminal,” an airport marketing and PR program cooked up by MarketPlace Development and our very own PR team, was recently nominated in the “Digital / Emerging Technology Integrated Digital Campaigns” category for the 2016 International Council of Shopping Centers U.S. MAXI Awards. This unique program was created in conjunction with the National Turkey Federation, to welcome the National Thanksgiving Turkey that is annually pardoned by the President of the United States to the nation’s capital.

Here’s the scoop on how we made turkeys fly to later land a major marketing award nomination:

How We Came Up With It

To celebrate the National Thanksgiving Turkeys’ arrival to Washington D.C. prior to being pardoned at the White House, Delucchi Plus and MarketPlace Development, the food and retail concessions manager at Washington Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport partnered with the National Turkey Federation on a multifaceted PR and marketing communications campaign.

How We Did It

We designed and targeted a sequence of micro social media ad campaigns, procured an interactive onsite photo entertainment system, drafted dedicated website content coupled with e-newsletters, assisted with exclusive onsite restaurant events and implemented public relations tactics to inform and engage with thousands of worldwide travelers arriving to and departing from D.C. for the holiday season.

turkey in the terminal 4

turkey in the terminal 2

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Results

The presidential pardon turkeys, Honest and Abe, touched down at Washington Dulles International airport with crowds cheering and many travelers posing for photo opportunities. Although the turkeys did not fly themselves — that’s what “Turkey One” is for – our campaign certainly took off with “Turkey in the Terminal” receiving hundreds of thousands of social impressions and top tier onsite editorial coverage for the airports including features with ABC News 7, Airport Revenue News, USA TODAY, Washingtonian and the Washington Post.