THE FESTIVAL OF TREES

The campaign was to promote the opening of O’Fallon Station, a new $2.1 million-dollar indoor/outdoor pavilion located in downtown. The 4-month campaign goals were to build community excitement and buy-in for this one of a kind structure and drive attendance

to over 23 special events in December. To do so, we created a new event - “The Festival of Trees,” to engage community businesses and citizens and help raise funds for St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

The campaign ran in three phases from September-December 2018. The creative needed to reach the community in a manner that would make the Festival the “go-to” event of the season, visually show the progress of the building, and encourage widespread community support. Tactics that were used included an email marketing strategy, an organic and paid social media campaign, the creation and distribution of informational brochures to the public and local businesses, widespread outdoor large format 4x4 signage, community outreach, and the implementation of classes through the Parks and Recreation department that supported the overall goal of the campaign.

The marketing budget for this campaign was $5,000 from the Parks and Recreation, therefore, we needed to recruit over 30 businesses to sponsor and donate funds to make the event a success. This campaign recruited 85 decorators and sponsors and brought

in 150 event volunteers. The social media campaign reached

64,600 interactions, garnered 4,000 event clicks, and gained 2,636 followers. Overall, the Festival of Trees raised $50,000 dollars for charity and drove 35,000 attendees to the O’Fallon Station in the ?rst week of opening to the public.