Six Years. $2 Billion. And a Jump in Times Square.
Times Square, 2022. Chicago named Best Big City in the U.S. for the sixth consecutive year. Yes, I bought the shirt.
Photo credit: Rita Chen
Challenge:
Chicago is one of the world's great cities — but it was fighting a perception problem. Negative media coverage was drowning out the story of a vibrant, world-class destination. My job was to break through that noise with a strategy that would attract global visitors, shift the narrative, and deliver measurable results.
After months of research, stakeholder alignment, and a presentation to the Mayor, I launched the Welcome Home global campaign in 2017 — reaching audiences across seven international markets with translated content, localized social channels, and the first-ever global influencer program, bringing 50 influencers from around the world to experience Chicago firsthand.
In 2021, following new audience segmentation research I commissioned post-pandemic, I launched Seize Your Summer to re-engage high-impact travelers — a campaign that went on to win the Illinois Excellence in Tourism Award in 2022.
In 2022, When You Go You Know launched as the new brand umbrella — a campaign built on the insight that Chicago converts skeptics into believers the moment they arrive.
The result:
Across three campaigns, the work generated over $2 billion in combined economic impact — Welcome Home ($1.3B), Seize Your Summer ($380M), and When You Go You Know ($390M, with a $512 return on ad spend).
My favorite part:
Condé Nast Traveler readers voted Chicago the Best Big City in the U.S. for six consecutive years: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. That doesn't happen by accident — it happens when strategy, creativity, and relentless execution all point in the same direction.
Chicago has since gone on to win the award nine consecutive years and counting. The foundation was built to last.
What This Means For My Clients Today:
Great marketing doesn't start with a campaign idea — it starts with a clear-eyed understanding of your audience, your competitive landscape, and the narrative you need to shift. At Choose Chicago, that meant commissioning new research before every major campaign, building the strategy around what the data actually said, and staying disciplined about who we were trying to reach and why. That's exactly the approach I bring to clients today — whether you're a destination, a brand, or an organization trying to break through your own version of negative clutter.
