VIDCON VIDEO GAME
Visit Baltimore welcomed VidCon for the first time to the East Coast at the Baltimore Convention Center Sept . 28 – Oct . 1 . To inspire VidCon ’ s youthful attendees to check out our city ’ s restaurants , retail and cultural attractions , we developed a free Baltimore-themed video game called “ Eat Snacks .” We worked with our website partner , Mindgrub , to create an 80s-inspired video game where players are crabs , trying to avoid birds in the Inner Harbor with the goal of eating as many Baltimore snacks , like the iconic lemon stick , as possible .
Of course , a key component of the arcade experience is claiming prizes . Once attendees finished the game , high scorers were invited to the Visit Baltimore booth to claim freshly made cookies by Nina ’ s Cookie Explosion . We worked with Nina to create three exclusive Baltimore flavors for the booth : crab chip ( a classic chocolate chip cookie with the addition of crap chips and Old Bay ), snowball ( a sugar cookie with blue sugar crystals and mini marshmallows ) and lemon stick ( a lemon sugar cookie with peppermint crumbles ).
Our booth had more than 800 QR scans , and the video game page was the second most popular page on Baltimore . org that weekend . This project also won two Web Excellence Awards in the categories of gamification and tourism , and a Silver Addy from the American Advertising Federation of Baltimore in the category of apps , games and virtual reality .
PCMA X MESS IN A BOTTLE COLLAB
For the Professional Convention Management Association ( PCMA ) Convening Leaders meeting in January , Visit Baltimore collaborated with Kalilah Wright of MESS in a Bottle , a lifestyle brand that puts messages on t-shirts packaged in reusable bottles . We created a custom message for PCMA to directly speak to the meeting planner audience by inviting them to manifest the new year by filling in the blank , “ I PLAN to be ___.” Attendees chose from Bold , Extraordinary , Innovative , Fearless or Fierce to have pressed on to a t-shirt or tote bag in the booth . They were also given the opportunity to taste Baltimore ’ s iconic treat , the snowball , with classic flavors like egg custard topped with marshmallow . We welcomed 368 people into our booth , compared to 145 the previous year .
19