The Columbia County Conventions and Visitors Bureau’s celebrated Serene18 Paddle campaign has won another award, making its mark in Georgia’s growing tourism industry.
On Sept. 8, the Southeast Tourism Society, a travel professional association, announced that the bureau, also called Visit Columbia County, won Best Marketing Campaign Under $100K in the society’s Shining Example Award.
The campaign, launched in 2020 and comprising largely of digital and social media ads, produced by Augusta marketing firm Kruhu. It had already won the TravelBlazeraward from the Georgia Association of Convention and Visitor Bureaus, and a Gold Addy from the American Advertising.
It also won Best Integrated Marketing and Messaging Campaign Under $1 Millionaward from the U.S. Travel Association, which is an Educational Seminar for Tourism Organizations, or ESTO, award, which the bureau’s marketing director, Ashley Swain, refers to as “the highest award you can win in tourism.”
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“We just really stuck with, like we knew,” said Swain, who attributes the success of the Serene18 marketing endeavor to a unique concept developed and executed by Kruhu and a strong visual element. “I think those two things together really made this an amazing campaign and made it stand out in a crowd of other projects.”
As promotion, the Serene18 videos seem to have done what they were designed to do. The videos went viral, and the more than four million online impressions materialized in Visit Columbia County mailing over 10,000 passports for the 18 square mile route along the Augusta Canal, Clarks Hill Lake and the Savannah River.
The faces of the tongue-in-cheek Serene18 videos are Redford and Benny who serve as guides along the waterways and give insights into Columbia County’s outdoor scene.
Gov. Brian Kemp remarked at the Georgia Governor’s Tourism Conference in Athens last month that tourism brought more than $64 billion to the state in 2021.
Visitors spent over $183 million in Columbia County last year (a 17.6% increase from 2020), according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development. This resulted in over 2,000 jobs and $13.6 million in state in local taxes—which, in turn, is equivalent to $282 in tax savings per county household.
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Swain says that outdoor activities, such as the Serene18 water trail, are major attractors for visitors. At the 12th annual Columbia County State of the Community Address, county manager Scott Johnson noted that 2.4 million people visited Columbia County parks in 2022.
Youth sports are another draw, Swain said, from baseball to soccer to fishing tournaments; and Johnston was also apt to note that, in 2012, the county had 3,334 participants in youth sports, and 7,743 this year.
Tourists to Columbia County are mostly from Atlanta, Swain said, but that visitors regularly come from all over the world to see what the county has to offer.
“It’s a really great opportunity to extend southern hospitality to them and make them feel really good about where they are and showcase the community.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
