This week, while at the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau 99th annual luncheon, we found out that our Art SF 08 campaign won the CTTC’s Tourism Marketing Excellence Award.

The campaign, which showcased the city’s incredible summer of art, featured national print ads, online banner ads, a microsite (above), rack cards and posters throughout SFO. We’re always thrilled when industry insiders recognize and reward great work. A huge thanks to Lynn Bruni and the rest of the marketing team at the SFCVB for bringing us on and making this happen!

Find out more about our advertising work.

The campaign, which showcased the city’s incredible summer of art, featured national print ads, online banner ads, a micro site, rack cards and posters throughout SFO. Our fingers are crossed!

Read more about our advertising work

• In 2007, 16.1 million visitors came to San Francisco, showing an increase of 2.4% over 2006.
• Visitors spent $8.2 billion in 2007, which was an increase of 6.2% over 2006 and an all-time high.

Joe D’Alessandro, SFCVB President and CEO, says, “Tourism continues to be San Francisco’s most vital industry. Visitor dollars provide the largest financial impact to the local economy and its imperative that we continue to fuel this source by strengthening our marketing efforts to promote San Francisco and the Bay Area as [a] premier destination.”

All agreed, Joe. We are thrilled to see that SFCVB is seeing such positive results in its marketing efforts. Even more thrilling is the idea of playing a role in bringing home the bacon for San Francisco.

Simple task, right? Attract tourists to San Francisco. Tourists get the experience of a lifetime (and spend a little cash along the way). Everybody wins. What made this project the most difficult was perhaps the incredible lineup of artists and exhibitions. So the question was, how to balance such a star-studded lineup? Take a look at what we were working with:

• Asian Art Museum – Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty
• Contemporary Jewish Museum – designed by renowned “starchitect” Daniel Libeskind (also designer to the new World Trade Center), opening its doors June 8
• SFMOMA – Frida Kahlo
• de Young – Chihuly
• Legion of Honor – Women Impressionists

These visiting exhibits embody an extensive range of cultures from all over the world. After digging into this project it became clear that in many ways, San Francisco already mirrors this fusion of foreign and domestic customs. Why not flip the deck on this idea – let’s present San Francisco as a piece of art in itself, and as such, the ideal host to these rich cultures.

And so…ArtSF08 was born. With a prominent media run in publications such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and Los Angeles Magazine, the campaign had to appeal to the most sophisticated and well-traveled reader. The result: check it out here.