The 7 Wonders of Oregon are back by popular demand.
Last year's boffo state tourism advertising campaign, launched by Travel Oregon and created by Weiden+Kennedy, begins appearing on TV and in movie theaters the first week of March.
New this year is a minute-long cinema ad for German theaters, touting the 7 Wonders of Oregon' as the last lead-up advertisement before the start of the Hollywood movie "Wild,'' which was filmed in Oregon and featured the Pacific Crest Trail. (Ad partners include Travel Oregon, Oregon Film and Brand USA.)
Seven Wonders ads will air on Portland TV, but more so in the region's main markets for visitors from other states and provinces, including Seattle, Vancouver, B.C., Boise and San Francisco, plus the United Kingdom.
Why another year of an old campaign? Because last year's launch worked so well, according to Linea Gagliano, spokesperson for Travel Oregon, the trade name for the Oregon Tourism Commission.
The 7 Wonders of Oregon' were defined last year, when the campaign was launched, as Crater Lake, Painted Hills, Smith Rock, Wallowas, Mount Hood, Columbia River Gorge and Oregon coast. The campaign's goal was to get visitors and residents out exploring the natural wonders of the state.
Due to geography, three of the seven have dependable methods for counting visitors with park-like settings, and all showed significant upticks: 14 percent at Smith Rock, 10 percent at Crater Lake and 50 percent at Painted Hills. The other four are more difficult to count, but anecdotally showed big travel gains and a lot of buzz around the seven wonders theme.
Anyone who was out and about last year could have noticed that travel and tourism was on the upswing just about everywhere, largely due to the improving economy. Oregon experienced a 4 percent increase in lodging demand, while room rents were 5.5 percent higher than the previous year.
The seven wonders campaign doesn't get the entire credit, but undoubtedly helped Travel Oregon show a steady monthly growth in visits to its website and an additional 120,000 new fans via social media.
This OregonLive.com blog site covered the 7 Wonders of Oregon extensively last year and will continue this year. Look in the box at right for links to past stories.
This week, on seven consecutive days, this site will explain why each is a wonder, elaborate a bit about it, provide contact information and then list seven bests for each of the wonders in these categories:
Best: view, who knew, day to visit, buy this, selfie spot, hike and nearby. Each of the seven posts will have a photo gallery, video and links to other stories about the wonder.
The schedule:
Sunday, March 1: The introduction (that's this post)
Sunday, March 1: Oregon coast.
Monday, March 2: Columbia River Gorge.
Tuesday, March 3: Mount Hood.
Wednesday, March 4: Painted Hills.
Thursday, March 5: Smith Rock.
Friday, March 6: Wallowas.
Saturday, March 7: Crater Lake.
Terry Richard
trichard@oregonian.com
503-221-8222; @trichardpdx