Visit McKinney

The Challenge

The DFW metropolitan region is thriving with several great cities commanding a draw. Almost every destination claims to have it all, highlighting relatively similar categorical history, art/culture, dining, shopping and outdoor recreation experiences as reasons to visit. The team at Visit McKinney — the destination marketing organization for the city of McKinney, Texas — recognized this challenge and their need to show they’re more than just a Texas town with friendly locals and “something for everyone”. In order to stand out among a crowded market, they needed to effectively communicate what makes McKinney truly exceptional, in addition to base-level attributes that most DMO’s espouse.

We partnered with Visit McKinney to create a holistic brand message that could be used across all visitor-centric marketing materials. The ultimate goal is to create repeat visitors to the area, whether that’s getting people to put McKinney on their must-see list or encouraging those around town and in the surrounding area to explore.

To do this, we created an insider cool around everything McKinney, to both entice new visitors and make their people proud. “If You Know, You Go” was born to tease our audiences to discover for themselves what we’re positioning as insider knowledge. This tempts explorers to find out for themselves what makes McKinney so special, without straight-up telling them. This concept added intrigue to something that can’t easily be explained, because McKinney is greater than the sum of its parts. What makes it special is almost indefinable, because it takes a trip to truly understand.