As advised to Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications.
The supply materials for Leah Chandler’s work is lush: stunning seashores, resplendent mountains, a vibrant tradition and the beloved piña colada. Because the CMO for Uncover Puerto Rico, a nonprofit vacation spot advertising group, Chandler has infused emotional storytelling into her advertising and media campaigns and solid compelling model partnerships that appeal to vacationers, enterprise vacationers and media to the island.
Since becoming a member of Uncover Puerto Rico, she and her advertising and comms groups have continued to interrupt data in journey and tourism, positively impacting native communities and jobs. Final yr marked the strongest reserving yr in conferences and occasions on the island in almost a decade.
I caught up with Chandler on the Cannes Lions Competition of Innovation this summer season the place she shared her success round storytelling on panel discussions, specifically the “Dwell Boricua” marketing campaign which showcases actual tales from native residents. The marketing campaign resulted in $9.8 billion in tourism income in 2023.
Just like the marketing campaign, the Indiana native is passionate and relatable. Learn on to find out how Chandler approaches vacation spot advertising and management, all whereas heeding her mom’s favourite piece of recommendation.
Origin Story
DIANE: How’d you get right here? Share some important stops alongside your journey to CMO of Uncover Puerto Rico.
LEAH: Since a younger age, I’ve been enamored with journey, however I unintentionally fell into working in journey by the use of advertising and public relations. I started my profession at small businesses in Indianapolis, engaged on travel-related accounts, which ultimately introduced me to guide the Indiana Tourism enterprise at their company of file.
From there, I made a number of strikes to different businesses and ultimately transitioned to the shopper aspect in 2013. I led Missouri Tourism’s model repositioning effort in 2013, introducing a brand new model id and corresponding marketing campaign that includes “Benefit from the Present.” I used to be the chief advertising officer for Discover Branson (Missouri), the place I led the expansion of the group’s tourism trade for 5 years, repositioning the vacation spot’s model and posting back-to-back years of file ROI for the group’s advertising program.
Since Might 2018, I’ve served because the chief advertising officer of Uncover Puerto Rico, spearheading initiatives to showcase the island’s magnificence and tradition.
DIANE: What was the transition like for you from company comms to CMO?
LEAH: The transition was simpler than I assumed it could be. Having spent greater than 10 years working at businesses, I had a eager understanding of how shopper analysis and knowledge drive technique, which informs advertising and communications plans and in the end, how these are measured to find out success.
Management
DIANE: What’s a very powerful high quality a advertising chief should possess?
LEAH: As a communications chief, probably the most essential high quality is adaptability. The media panorama and shopper behaviors are always evolving, and a profitable chief should be agile and capable of pivot methods and messages in response to new traits, challenges and alternatives.
Transparency and belief are extraordinarily vital. As soon as belief is misplaced, it is vitally troublesome to regain. Readers, followers, shoppers and shoppers demand transparency right this moment, and inside groups aren’t any totally different. Leaders in advertising should signify the reality and guarantee readability of their messaging – regardless of the viewers.
DIANE: How do you encourage your staff?
LEAH: This can sound tacky, however truthfully, I feel my staff evokes me greater than I encourage them. I’m filled-to-the-brim impressed each single day by the folks I work with. Our staff at Uncover Puerto Rico is probably the most good, gifted, passionate, humorous, curious and caring group of individuals I’ve ever recognized. They’ve the most important coronary heart for Puerto Rico and present it within the love they put into each challenge, each put up, each e mail, each tradeshow and each assembly they tackle.
I hope that my staff would inform you they’re impressed by my dedication to belonging and inclusion. I focus so much on staff integration and making a tradition the place folks really feel valued and appreciated.
DIANE: At Uncover Puerto Rico, greater than 70% of your workers are ladies and an analogous proportion are in managerial or senior degree roles. That’s quite spectacular. What are some methods businesswomen can rise to management roles?
LEAH: To enhance the numbers on an even bigger scale, we have to create environments that foster adaptability and suppleness. This includes offering mentorship alternatives, selling work-life steadiness, and implementing insurance policies that assist ladies in any respect profession phases. Encouraging ladies to really feel assured including to the dialog will assist them develop into management positions, driving additional progress, and guaranteeing that our organizations profit from various views and experiences.
Tradition
Fill within the clean: Uncover Puerto Rico’s tradition is inclusive .
DIANE: And Puerto Rican tradition – how would you describe it?
LEAH: I’d describe Puerto Rican tradition as passionate, vibrant and lively. A giant a part of the island’s tradition is centered round delight in being Puerto Rican, which is the premise of our marketing campaign, “Dwell Boricua.” Dwelling Boricua (a phrase used to explain people who find themselves Puerto Rican or of Puerto Rican descent) is a frame of mind, a lifestyle, an expertise vacationers can solely discover one place on earth: Puerto Rico.
We faucet into the facility of emotional storytelling and spotlight distinctive features of the Puerto Rican tradition, inspiring folks to take pleasure in all components of the Island (past the wonderful seashores) like its pure wonders, El Yunque or the bioluminescent bays.
DIANE: Describe your relationship along with your communications, HR and different counterparts.
LEAH: It’s constructed on adaptability and collaboration. We work carefully to align our methods and guarantee a cohesive strategy throughout all capabilities. By fostering open communication and a versatile mindset, we will pivot rapidly to deal with challenges and seize alternatives.
Now we have a mutual ambition to remodel and place Uncover Puerto Rico from a Journey & Hospitality model right into a Way of life model that embeds its “Dwell Boricua” spirit and tradition into the worldwide shopper cultural zeitgeist.
The Work
DIANE: Emotional storytelling is on the core of what you do. What are some methods you’ve been profitable with that in advertising Puerto Rico as a prime vacation spot?
LEAH: Emotional storytelling and values-based advertising break free from conventional narratives, utilizing daring and modern content material to seize consideration and creativeness. This distinctive strategy has helped us shatter tourism data and overcome earlier challenges by constructing belief with shoppers and fostering a optimistic picture of Puerto Rico as a premier journey vacation spot.
Values-based advertising at Uncover Puerto Rico includes aligning our advertising methods with the core values of the DMO and the cultural heritage of the Island.
A chief instance of that is the “Dwell Boricua” marketing campaign, which highlights the Puerto Rican life-style, tradition, and spirit by specializing in genuine native tales and experiences. This marketing campaign used movies, social media and collaborations with native artists and influencers to create a real reference to the viewers.
DIANE: What about Puerto Rico would compel a traveler to decide on it over different locations?
Puerto Rico can also be wealthy in festivals, traditions, artwork, and music. Our tradition is one that’s each welcoming and enchanting, and that may be a sturdy promoting level for vacationers. Our predominant aim at Uncover Puerto Rico is to emphasise that everybody can immerse themselves on this tradition and “Dwell Boricua” in their very own method, emphasizing all the heat our island – and our folks – have to supply.
Individually, analysis revealed that one-third of Individuals had been unaware that Puerto Rico doesn’t require a passport for journey. So, we created an initiative, “No Passport, No Drawback,” highlighting the benefit of journey to Puerto Rico. The positioning focuses on the accessibility of journey to the Island and makes use of earned and social media channels to unfold the message. This messaging has remained a key focus in 2024 as a part of the broader “Dwell Boricua” advertising marketing campaign.
DIANE: How do you propose for the opportunity of one other main climate occasion hitting the island?
LEAH: When we’re not in hurricane season, we’re planning for it. Now we have 25+ disaster eventualities we have now labored by. When the 2017 hurricane hit us, the communications piece was vital to get phrase out about our story of restoration. Half of the messaging was that tourism generally is a power for good.
DIANE: What are a couple of main traits and developments dealing with tourism entrepreneurs?
LEAH: One notable development is wellness and psychological well being journey, which has seen a 30% enhance in curiosity over the previous three years. This consists of sleep journey, meditation retreats and nature-based actions aimed toward selling leisure and rejuvenation.
One other important development is the rise of audio advertising. With the surge in podcast listenership, now at 43% of Individuals aged 12 and over, we see modern makes use of of audio content material to interact vacationers. For instance, collaborations like Spotify and easyJet’s “Pay attention & Ebook” use listening habits to personalize journey suggestions.
Lastly, blended journey is on the rise, combining enterprise and leisure journeys. Puerto Rico’s attraction for group journey has led to a file $180M in assembly and conference enterprise, a 20% enhance from the earlier yr and 49% above pre-pandemic ranges.
DIANE: What are some distinctive methods you’ll be able to safe media protection?
LEAH: First, our life-style branding strategy helps us faucet into new B2C and B2B markets and safe earned media protection by interesting to vacationers’ broader pursuits and existence, past simply conventional trip wants. This strategy permits us to distinguish Puerto Rico by highlighting its distinctive attributes and the varied experiences it presents.
Second, we domesticate consumer-centric partnerships with manufacturers that seize headlines.
We examined this strategy with a colour we developed in partnership with Pantone referred to as Puerto Rico Sunshine, impressed by the hues of the solar right here on the island. We noticed the colour infused in so many areas of popular culture – from inside paint to the runway at New York Style Week.
Collaborations with native expertise and initiatives like “United Voices” – which was a Shorty Awards finalist within the Storytelling class – have introduced Puerto Rico’s tradition to life, making a compelling narrative that transcends conventional tourism advertising and fosters a deeper reference to our viewers. Impressed by the varied and vibrant voices of Puerto Rico, “United Voices” aimed to showcase the island’s tradition by the eyes of its folks, highlighting their tales, traditions, and distinctive views. Partnering with AFAR allowed us to amplify these voices globally, celebrating the Island’s wealthy cultural tapestry.
DIANE: And we will’t neglect the piña colada was invented in Puerto Rico seven many years in the past.
LEAH: We’re happy with that! Just lately, we fashioned a partnership with Van Leeuwen Ice Cream to have a good time the seventieth anniversary of the enduring drink and Nationwide Piña Colada Day by introducing a limited-edition piña colada ice cream taste. This new taste honored the wealthy heritage of Puerto Rico.
This collaboration, which included shopper, media and MICE companion activations, offered Uncover Puerto Rico with a chance to interact Van Leeuwen’s devoted buyer base and ignite enthusiasm amongst foodies, shoppers and media by way of a branded truck and cart that shared free samples and generated buzz round this limited-edition taste, which offered out in solely two weeks.
We’ve additionally partnered with Good Morning America, the New York Yankees, Backyard & Gun journal and Tales of the Cocktail over the previous couple of months
Self
DIANE: Take us by a typical workday – what time do you get up, what’s your morning routine, what number of conferences, greatest a part of day? How do you shut out the day?
LEAH: I get up round 5:30 a.m. and often attempt to begin the day with a exercise – I particularly love my Peloton bike. Conferences and e mail eat most of my days once I’m not touring, and our staff and I journey fairly a bit for work.
DIANE: Private habits that work? A behavior you need to shed?
LEAH: A behavior I’ve only recently began is obstructing time on my calendar for targeted work that requires strategic pondering and planning. With out doing this, the times simply get booked up with assembly after assembly, and little time is left for my very own work. Blocking this time helps me take again management of my calendar and permitting me to be extra intentional with every hour of the day.
Different Tidbits
Hometown & Household:
My mother is my inspiration. Along with elevating three youngsters, she had a robust dedication to her profession, beginning as an assistant on the Osgood Journal and Versailles Republican newspaper workplaces and rising to change into the writer, working there for 45 years. Her unbelievable work ethic, particularly as a lady, stood out to me. Witnessing her juggle a demanding profession whereas elevating youngsters was spectacular and admirable.
My household beloved taking holidays. We took plenty of highway journeys, however I vividly keep in mind a cruise to the Bahamas that sparked my love for journey. As we speak, my household remains to be based mostly in Southeastern Indiana, the place my now-retired dad and mom have a strawberry farm and domesticate honey.
Finest Recommendation:
From a private perspective, the perfect recommendation has come from my mother. “What’s common isn’t at all times proper, and what’s proper isn’t at all times common.”
Making choices which are proper for the vacation spot and the folks residing there as an alternative of doing what folks of affect need you to do. Now we have a robust love for knowledge and analysis that helps information our choices regardless that they is probably not common.
Business Mentors:
All through my profession, I’ve had unbelievable mentors who’ve profoundly influenced my journey. One in all them is Graciela Eleta, a Uncover Puerto Rico board member and chair of our Advertising and marketing & Gross sales Committee. Graciela, together with her 22 years at P&G, is a powerhouse. Regardless of understanding little about tourism initially, she immersed herself and rapidly turned an skilled. Her skill to deal with powerful conversations with grace and her inspirational management are qualities I deeply admire.
One other mentor is Brad Dean, our CEO at Uncover Puerto Rico. Brad’s servant management fashion is each aspirational and impactful. His compassion is clear in his actions and the best way he each day leads and evokes our staff. Brad manages with a mix of affection and excessive expectations, driving excellence by his good enterprise acumen.
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