HOMETOWN THROW DOWN WITH CTS
Chickasaw Travel Stop (CTS) is a travel stop and convenience store chain in south-central Oklahoma. CTS offers a wide range of amenities including high quality fuel, ATMs, smoke shops, beer caves, made-to-order food and drive-thru windows at select locations. CTS was established in 1987 as an entity of the Chickasaw Nation as a single convenience store in Davis, Oklahoma. In the 30 years since, CTS has expanded to eight locations along the I-35 corridor.
Challenge
CTS sought to increase brand awareness as the premier travel stop in south-central Oklahoma. With larger competing brands in the market, it was integral that CTS become known as the local, community-supported travel stop and convenience store option. CTS wanted to increase engagement in the communities they served in a genuine and unique way. They sought a connection that would establish their identity as a part of the community. Koch Communications considered these challenges to develop a strategy that would achieve their goals and excite and engage the local community in-store and online.
Strategy
The Koch Comm team aimed to develop a strategy that incorporated various digital media efforts to raise awareness of CTS as a community partner around a topic of universal passion among the people across south-central Oklahoma. The natural fit was high school football, which led to the creation of a campaign dubbed the CTS Hometown Throw Down. The campaign highlighted one game each week during the Oklahoma high school football season as the Hometown Throw Down Game of the Week. Promotion for the campaign began in August and lasted through the end of Oklahoma’s high school football season in mid-December.
Digital collateral was created to promote the Hometown Throw Down on Facebook and Twitter, through email marketing and on the CTS website. A schedule of games to be highlighted each week during the season was also developed. The Koch Comm team created Facebook and Twitter ads strategically targeting intended audiences to increase awareness of the campaign. The team also planned and implemented a social media contest where individuals could guess the score of each Hometown Throw Down Game of the Week to win prizes.
Teams, schools, players and fan bases were engaged across social media channels the week of each game to create hype and promote engagement with CTS and the Hometown Throw Down campaign. Throughout the campaign, CTS had an on-site presence at games and CTS-branded miniature footballs were passed out to fans. CTS also shared photos and videos from a number of the games in real-time across its social media channels.
Additionally, the Hometown Throw Down was promoted through monthly emails to CTS newsletter subscribers and customers that drove engagement to CTS social media throughout the campaign. The strategy spanned across digital media to maximize engagement with their audience.
Results
Hometown Throw Down produced results that effectively engaged the community and achieved CTS’s goals. The campaign was so successful in 2015 that it returned for the 2016 football season with impressive results. 2016 results include:
- Total Facebook Growth: 13 percent
- Facebook Impressions: 628,283 (56 percent of all impressions in 2016)
- Unique Facebook Users Reached: 322,404
- Total Twitter Growth: 29.4 percent
- Twitter Impressions: 203,000 (68.5 percent of all impressions in 2016)
