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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association on Wednesday launched a 25-day, $100,000 advertising campaign to lure regional visitors to the city the weekend before the Super Bowl, which will be played Feb. 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
“Everything will be set up the weekend before—the Super Bowl Village, including the zip line, the NFL Experience and a lot of other attractions—and there are hotel rooms available in the city’s center, in some cases for as little as $99 a night,” said ICVA spokesman Chris Gahl. “We want people to know they can come here and experience the Super Bowl city before the Super Bowl.”
The ad campaign, which includes banner ads on ESPN.com and 30-second ads on Sirius/XM satellite radio and local sports-talk radio stations in Chicago, Cincinnati and Louisville, will run through Feb. 2.
“We’re running the campaign right up until the time that the four-night [hotel-stay] minimums begin,” Gahl explained.
The tagline of the campaign is “Come see a Super City before the Super Bowl” and it will encourage people to go to the visitIndy.com web site to view Super Bowl attractions and make hotel reservations. The ICVA operates a reservations system for area hotels.
PriceWaterHouseCoopers released a study projecting visitors will spend $200 million in the host city at this year’s Super Bowl.
While the vast majority of that amount will be spent on Super Bowl Sunday and the three days leading up to it, sports economist Andrew Zimbalist said host cities can boost visitor spending 5 percent to 10 percent by drawing people to the city seven to 10 days before the event.
“We think drawing people here the weekend before and early the week of the Super Bowl is a great way to add on to the economic impact of the Super Bowl for Indianapolis’ businesses,” Gahl said. “All this is an attempt to drive more traffic to our area hotels, restaurants and other businesses.
“We know a lot of people want to experience the Super Bowl atmosphere, but may not think it’s possible. With Indianapolis’ central location and with what we have available, we want people to know the Super Bowl experience could be more accessible to them than ever.”
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