An American landmark uses Pond travel writers to talk to the world

Nearly forty years on visitors all over the world are still wowed by the views spanning 360 degrees, four states and eighty miles, 1,000 ft up at John Hancock Observatory. The only trouble is, Sears Tower has a higher observation deck.

Kiwis, however, are used to big challenges. So when expatriate kiwi, Daniel Thomas, took up the role of General Manager in 2008, he gathered together the very best people in every field.

With a local media, design and PR team on board, and the backing of the building owners (US property company Golub and Co), he turned to The Pond’s international consultants for the creative edge.

To get everyone on the same page, Pond partner, Sue Worthington, high-tailed it to Chicago to roll out to an initial 2-day strategy meeting. “Some of the best knowledge and strategic minds often existing within companies,” says Sue. “Using the collective knowledge of suppliers, JHO and Golub and Co management, we were able to create a strategy that became the blueprint for two years.”

While the project eventually pulled in nine Pond creative consultants (six of them with US experience), this story is about the wordsmiths in the group.

Since JHO couldn’t compete with Sears Tower on height, the strategy had to focus on the best all-round experience available, spear-headed through marketing. The first job was to create a ‘word bank’ of headlines and copy summaries that could be fired out to the various local media as well as supplied to key distributors in the overseas markets.

Building on the JHO values (inspiring, passion, excellence, fresh and groovy) the tone of the copy reflected this with headlines like:

'It would be the world’s greatest bird’s eye view, if only birds could fly this high'

'See three states, get one free’ (25 % discount)

'Join the quarter mile high club’ (in-flight ad for cheeky Southwest airline)

'The view is breathless. Then again, at 1,000 ft, there is less oxygen'

The next cab off the rank was the website, written by digital writer Gerry Marychurch

“The style was in sharp contrast to the Sears Tower website, with more fun and less hyperbole (and fewer travel clichés too),” says Gerry. “With a well- constructed navigation and appropriate page headers, we could afford to strike a balance between headlines that were informational and ones that also captured peoples’ imagination.”

For the kids pages, we challenged them to a game or truth or dare; we let the corporate market know we add the ‘wow’ when it comes to events; and we borrowed a line from an old Rachel Hunter shampoo ad, ‘Building an icon doesn’t happen overnight. But it does happen’.

The other big thing we did was to put ourselves firmly in the shoes of each user group. For example, by continually reviewing the information teachers would find useful, or the way we acknowledged event planners’ challenges.

The tone of the website was then flowed through into e-mail newsletters and cheeky slogans for online banners and printed promotional/retail offers such as:

'Get sky high for $10'

'Our new multimedia tour is free. The view, on the other hand, is quite expansive'

'Get a bird’s eye view for chickenfeed'

'Souvenirs with Altitude'

'Lavazza Café. Chicago’s greatest caffeine high'

The results
Ticket sales increased 18% month-on-month, while JHO also gained a 30-40% saving in writing costs, due to the exchange rate. Moreover, the observatory’s new marketing won the Illinois Grand Tourism Award 2009.