MARGARITAVILLE
Creating the most immersive Margaritaville experience in the world.
TYPE: BRANDING
GOAL: Resort Launch & Property Sales
DURATION: 3 YEARS
About

Today, Margaritaville Resort Orlando is a sprawling complex complete with hotel, vacation rental homes, a water park and more. But we remember a few short years ago when it was a 300-acre patch of dirt in the vicinity of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It was then that Margaritaville trusted us to bring the vision of the iconic brand’s most ambitious hospitality project to life.

CHALLENGE

Tasked to help sell the first 125 vacation rental homes, without using a single broker, we set out to generate leads, equipped with only a few renderings, a strong sense of the brand, and a five-figure media budget. The results were staggering, generating over $100MM in sales before a single home was ready to be occupied.

01
Approach

Margaritaville has a distinct brand, well established in the mind of consumers, with an approval rating in the 90s. However, it had been licensed on everything from pool floats to frozen shrimp and was in danger of being diluted. With this 300 acre resort, that includes a water park, spa, shopping center and more, it was the first time you could buy in to eat, sleep, drink and repeat the Margaritaville lifestyle in your own vacation property.

Strategic Insights

The competition, especially in hospitality, had much deeper pockets, but we liked our chances because of the advantages we could offer based on the experience we could offer and the passion it created in Margaritaville’s audience.

Consumer Insight

I work hard…so I’m gonna live my
vacation lifestyle to the fullest.

Landscape Insight

Orlando is booming. Boomers are blooming. Everyone wants their share of the action.

Brand Insight

Solid foundation with high expectations. Now we have to give the “real estate” its soul.

CREATIVE PLATFORM:
“You can now own your place in paradise”
02
SOLUTIONS

With no assets and no media budget we leveraged the Margaritaville brand passion. We built a website and created the graphics package to help the resort team to sell out the first two phases of cottage developments, build a lead list to assure occupancy from day one and delivered the most anticipated resort openings in the Orlando area history.

BRANDED ASSETS
WHAT DID WE DO?

We built the brand then applied it to every possible touch point we had with potential owners and guests. The website and blog, business cards, banner ads, email blasts, even floor plans. Everything embraced the Margaritaville lifestyle and brought the resort to life before it welcomed a single guest.

Website & Blog

We built a website creating the first impression for the resort that was still very much a construction site. 

Targeting the right audiences with the right messages led to a site registration rate of over 10%, far exceeding brand norms and client expectations.

Digital Drivers

With a destination built and content populating it, we started to drive traffic, using a banner ads and a the brand email

We created research-based messaging  to determine efficacy, then added A/B testing to further improve open and click thru rates. The end result was email that out performed brand benchmarks by 50%!

Custom Content

Original blog and social content allowed people to engage with and learn about the resort, while also keeping active leads entertained, interested and informed as construction progress was made.

As the resort approached its opening, we were finally able to film amenities, and the first wave of people who had purchased a property.

03
RESULTS

The results speak for themselves. Without a single broker (or their commission) the inventory for the two launch phases sold though. 

The sales team was also left with a healthy list of depositors that assured the the remaining phases would sell when they were made available to the public.

RESULTS RECAP VIDEO
Website

1.1 Million Pageviews
347,000 Unique Visitors
448,041 Sessions
2+ Minutes Average Time on Page

10% Lead Conversion
12,000 Ownership Leads Gathered
20,000 Rental Leads Gathered

Sales

At the time our project closed the sales team used qualified leads to sell through all available inventory and take deposits on future phases of development, resulting in over $100 million in sales.

550 Deposits
225 Executed Contracts

Accolades

HSAMI Adrian Award Winner
Magellan Award winner

Let us know how we can help build your brand.