PORTLAND, Ore. — Travel Oregon and Wieden+Kennedy came together to create the second installment of the "Only Slightly Exaggerated" campaign. The duo released its animated short to show the beauty of Oregon by exaggerating only a little.
"When we launched this campaign last year it took off, it’s proven to be the most successful advertising campaign that Travel Oregon has ever run," said Todd Davidson, CEO of Travel Oregon. The first portion of the campaign amassed over 38,000,000 views.
"Some of us were born here, but some of us were adopted by Oregon and that's why we’re here and this campaign actually captures that same essence that matters not only to us as Oregonians but is also appealing to our visitors whether they’re coming here from Munich or Miami or Manhattan," Davidson said.
Travel Oregon and Wieden+Kennedy have had a working relationship for over 30 years. Davidson said their project began with a brief.
"We talk about what are we hearing visitors want to do in Oregon, what are the images of Oregon? How do we tap into some of the perceptions that they have about this place?" said Davidson. "We hear them talk about uncrowded, unspoiled natural beauty, we hear them talk about the culinary scene, we hear them talk about how they see Oregon as a place they can just come, relax, refresh, reconnect with their family and friends."
But coming to a creative and innovative campaign means looking at advertising as a whole.
"We try to look for something new to do that hasn’t been done before and so we sort of landed on this," said Ansel Wallenfang, writer at Wieden+Kennedy. "It seemed like a counter-intuitive choice at first to do animation because you’re not actually showing the state but we thought it served us a little better in terms of capturing the essence of what it really means to explore Oregon."
Nick Stokes, an Oregon native and art director at Wieden+Kennedy, said he has been experiencing the beauty of Oregon his whole life.
"It’s a pretty easy prompt to begin with, this place is so beautiful and so magical... I think we’ve found in truth, too, that when we take pictures of places like Mount Hood or the Alvord Desert or the coast, your photos never look as good as they do in real life. So we want to use animation to tell that story and capture the emotion and capture the spectacle of what Oregon is."
It took seven months from idea to finished project. It was all digitally hand-drawn, a time-consuming process that led to a product, unlike other travel ads.
Oregon has a booming, multi-billion dollar tourism industry. It added 3,000 jobs in 2018 alone.
The "Only Slightly Exaggerated" campaign has explored only a small part of the Beaver State, leaving plenty left to discover for Oregonians and tourists alike.