The Santa Barbara Effect

Visit Santa Barbara’s new “Santa Barbara Effect” brand campaign is designed to position the Santa Barbara South Coast as quintessential California with emotionally compelling content and an approachable and authentic voice. The campaign focuses on full-color photography, video and content pieces, and rolled out across a variety of channels and mediums from March 2019 to 2020. Key drive and fly markets were targeted through video, digital, print and social media. While COVID-19 eventually caused tourism to decline, the new brand and campaign were enthusiastically endorsed by the city who saw an initial uptick in total room nights sold and driven by an influx of new visitors—with a message that felt contemporary, approachable and authentic.