If Carrie Bradshaw and her "Sex and the City" cohorts were to cut a
PG-rated swath through Arizona, her diary might resemble the Arizona
Office of Tourism's first ad campaign targeting Generation X women.
The $526,000 campaign features a six-page Girls' Getaway booklet that
includes a chance to win a luxurious trip to Tucson, Phoenix or the
Grand Canyon area.
The tourism office hopes that with the aid of a surprising, high-tech
ally - credit-rating giant Experian - the simple sweepstakes form will
become the vehicle for collecting personal information about contestants
in their 30s whom the office is targeting.
That's the age when women begin to prefer hotel getaways to backpackers'
hostels. The booklet features a photo diary of a slender female trio who
look to be in their 20s giddily sipping cocktails, hiking and shopping.
"Research shows that consumers identify themselves with models who are
10 pounds lighter and 10 years younger than themselves," said Casey
Ambrose, the tourism office's fulfillment and advertising manager. "Gen
X-ers are an emerging market for Arizona. We want their responses but
hope to scoop up some baby boomers with the same advertising net."
The tourism office plans to mail the booklets to hundreds of women in
frost-prone cities such as St. Louis, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul,
Chicago and Portland, Ore. The booklets will also be inserted in Shape,
Oprah and More magazines.
Contestants who put their addresses on the sweepstake cards tell Arizona
far more than they might ever imagine.
Like a growing number of state tourism offices, Arizona's relies on
highly sophisticated consumer tracking databases operated by the
Experian credit-rating bureau. Any woman who fills out a card is
probably in Experian's vast files.
"All we need is the woman's address on her sweepstakes to access
Experian's data on whether she prefers boating or skiing," Ambrose
explained.
Experian collects much more than records of bounced checks and mortgage
payments. The company's Web site boasts that its Insource and
BehaviorBank databases can tell whether a consumer has a new baby or
spouse, arthritis or allergies, and what music, clothing and appliances
the consumer prefers.
No one from Experian returned calls for this story.
Experian's online product guide, "Harnessing the Power of Consumer
Data," notes that it collects data about individuals from public records
including marriage certificates, auto registrations and property
records. Experian, one of three national credit-rating agencies, also
mines its own credit ratings for information on income changes.
But Experian's guide boasts that it collects data from magazine inserts
consumers fill out when they order products such as cosmetics and from
"direct response Web sites and e-mail, and product registration cards
found in durable goods packaging."
"Our database provides coverage of more than 30 million households and
is updated with as many as 1 million responses each month," the Experian
guide says.
The mountains of Experian data are overwhelming unless they're refined.
Experian contracted with Kansas-based Ruf Strategic Solutions to put the
data into a usable format. Consumer names do not appear in Ruf reports,
said Terry Berggren, Ruf destination marketing manager.
"Most credit-rating bureaus have databases like Experian's and capture
information in the same ways," he said. "Experian is a reputable
company. We don't spam or telemarket. It may seem invasive. But with
today's technology, I think this is the world of consumer research we
all live in. If you look at the fine print for sweepstakes, it normally
tells you that your information can be disclosed to consumer
researchers."
When the small town of Benson bought a Ruf report, tourism director Bob
Nilson was stunned to get 99 data-packed pages
"The report cost $8,000, but we got a really good deal on it: $1,500,"
Nilson said. "We need to attract young tourists. When we mail brochures
to people who requested information about Benson, a lot of our mail is
returned marked 'deceased.' "
He was thrilled to see the mock-ups of the Girls' Getaway booklet at a
recent tourism conference.
"Here we are in Tucson and acting like Cleopatra at Miraval Life in
Balance Resort & Spa!" reads the caption of the Southern Arizona photos.
"Yes, it's tough being waited on hand and foot, but someone has to do
it! Went to a town called Tubac - gift shops, eclectic art galleries and
working studios where we watched an artist put the final touches on a
painting - which I fell in love with - and bought! (My first original!)"
A pitch for information
The Arizona Office of Tourism is
targeting "Generation X" women, who are now in their 30s, in a new
marketing campaign.
They can fill out a sweepstakes form for a chance to win a free trip to
an Arizona resort, but by doing so they are - probably unwittingly -
offering the state personal information.
Credit-rating agency Experian mines its databases for information
connected to the addresses that the contestants provide. A Kansas
company then massages the data and offers findings to Arizona tourism
offices. They, in turn, can use the information to tailor their pitches
more individually to potential visitors.
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