Branding Chickasaw Country

Chickasaw Country, the tourism brand of the Chickasaw Nation, representing 13 counties across south-central Oklahoma, partnered with creative agency Flight to produce a brand awareness video campaign promoting tourism destinations across its 7,000+ square mile region. The result was a three-film broadcast/social campaign spotlighting 15 unique locations, built around distinct audience segments and a traveler's-journey funnel. The campaign generated nearly 2 million social views, drove a 17% increase in annual travel guide requests, and won a 2025 Telly Award.

    • The region spans more than 7,000 square miles with thousands of potential attractions, events, and restaurants. Producing a representative, high-quality asset library within a limited production window (filming was completed over roughly one week) was a significant logistical hurdle.

    • Risk of the area being perceived as small-town or unremarkable, competing against more established Oklahoma and regional tourism destinations.

    • Risk of audiences misunderstanding Chickasaw Country as narrowly focused on Chickasaw tribal interests, rather than recognizing it as a broader regional economic development and tourism agency serving all of south-central Oklahoma.

    • Brand south-central Oklahoma as “Chickasaw Country”

    • Increase visitation and related spend within region

    • Highlight unique attractions in contrast to neighboring regions

    • Produce a core video series to serve as top-of-funnel Traveler’s Journey asset(s)

    • Three primary traveler segments, each mapped to its own film: families, couples, and friends/groups.

    • Prospective visitors evaluating south-central Oklahoma against other regional getaway destinations.

    • Existing and prospective requesters of the Chickasaw Country travel guide, used as a traveler’s-funnel conversion indicator.

    • Built creative decisions around a traveler's (buyer's) journey funnel, tailoring each film to a specific audience segment while allowing all three to combine into one cohesive regional perspective.

    • Emphasized both the region's outdoor/natural landmarks and its smaller-town, quaint attractions to counter the "boring" stereotype and broaden appeal.

    • Selected a representative handful of destinations (15 total across the three films) to convey the breadth of the region's offerings — gourmet restaurants, historic theaters, art galleries, monuments, hotels, natural landscapes, and rustic cabins — without attempting to cover everything.

    • Produced three final 30-second broadcast spots (with shorter cutdowns for social) featuring poignant music and voiceover, distributed across Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

    • Nearly 2 million views across social channels (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube).

    • 17% increase in annual travel guide requests, a strong down-funnel intent signal.

    • Won a 2025 Telly Award.

    • Client relationship renewed by leadership for an additional tourism campaign, indicating sustained internal confidence in the approach.

  • For this project, I contributed to a team effort in:

    • Creative direction

    • Location selection

    • Communications strategy

    • Travel Guide creation

    • Google Ads*

    Individually, I contributed:

    • As the primary point of contact for agency

    • On-set producing/brand management

    • Location scouting

    • Social media strategy (including SEO + paid Meta ads)

    • Photography

    • Digital asset delivery and management

    *Chickasaw Country contracts independent tourism marketing agency, Madden Media, to fulfill Google Ad process. I worked with Madden teams to develop the content of ads.