Ascension Parish | Design the Planet

When people think about Louisiana tourism, Ascension Parish doesn’t immediately come to mind. Nestled between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the Parish can be easily overlooked by visitors to the area. But, they’d be missing out, big time! New Orleans doesn’t have plantations, Cajun cultural sites, or an annual hot air balloon festival… but Ascension certainly does, and it’s known as Louisiana’s sweet spot. With the art of Alvin Batiste, the Donaldsonville Riverwalk, the expansive Tanger Outlet Center, The Cajun Village and a whole lot more, they attract tourists and locals year-round for food , festivals, and fun.

This rich and amazing slice of southern Louisiana offers food, art, and culture that’s nearly impossible to find anywhere else and is a must-see for anyone visiting Louisiana. With an aging website and support materials, Ascension Parish officials boldly decided to rebrand Ascension as “Louisiana’s Sweet Spot.” As a hub for tourism in the area, an amazing mobile-first website was needed. A whole new brand image needed to be created too and it all had to be ready for a special launch event!! No pressure right?

With neighbors like New Orleans and Baton Rouge just a few miles down the road in either direction, Ascension Parish needed to up its online marketing game to get the attention it deserved.

The Challenge

It has been an exciting one, to work with the Ascension Tourism internal marketing team to help them transition to a new marketing brand name:

Sugar Cane…
sweet things to do and see…
the new name is a great fit and a perfect way to describe their unique way of promoting themselves to the world.

So, how do we help make the transition?

We knew we needed an exciting site design to introduce the new name to past and potential visitors.

Also, stakeholders needed to embrace the new name while visitors learned more about the rich and vibrant history.

More importantly, we wanted the site to compel tourists, influencers, and trip planners to visit this amazing local.

Goals

Create a website that is easier to navigate and easy for them to update.
Create user-friendly maps. If someone is planning their visit OR already in Ascension Parish and looking for a specific venue, shop, or event – they can easily sort and sift through quality options and quickly find what they want.
Take the new name and logo and build a full brand around it.
Make sure the website does well on Google and other search and listing platforms.
Last but not least – get it done in the 3 month time frame so they could launch it at one of their annual events.

After a deep dive into the new brand plan, research into the current website, and visits to the competition, we crafted a new and improved navigation plan focused on awesome user experience delivery and so much more.

The Proof:

Video with Tracy Browning – of Louisiana’s Sweet Spot

We created a
new mapping system to help desktop and mobile users find what they are looking for faster, while spotlighting all of the Parish’s amazing venues…

big and small

New photography and video was created for the site and incorporated, allowing us to “bring the ‘Louisiana Sweet Spot’ to the viewer” like never before

And there is MORE:

To ensure the new branding stayed consistent with their fabulous new website’s look and tone, we were contracted to create a physical brochure to spotlight Louisiana’s Sweet Spot.

We needed to create a rack brochure collateral piece that would spotlight all restaurants, locations, and local cultural locations.

Needless to say, we were up to our ears in artwork from Louisiana painters, glamorous shopping malls, majestic antebellum homes, one-of-a-kind bed-and-breakfasts, pristine golf courses, and more.

Working closely with their internal team, we were able to distill it all down to create a fabulous brochure and website that easily guides visitors to and through this amazing Louisiana Sweet Spot.

Come on by, y’all!!

The Ascension Parish Tourism Commission needed a trusted partner to launch their new branding.

Design the Planet had the tools, the skills, and the vision to bring the expand the Visit Louisiana’s Sweet Spot message to web and print, creating a unique user experience that highlights the amazing sights that Ascension Parish has to offer. How’d we do it?