Jackson Hole: Go Deeper
Over tourism has grabbed headlines, and rightfully so. Like Barcelona and Venice, Jackson Hole is a victim of its own success. People don't come here to stress a moose or stack rocks in fragile riverbeds. They come because they love wild places. They just haven't been taught how to love this one properly. And they don't need another finger-wagging lecture. They want Jackson Hole to teach them something.
Every culture has a language. People learn French before Paris. German before the Alps. They want to sound like they know what's up — not like a tourist. Jackson Hole is no different. So where do people go to learn a language before a trip? The number one language learning app in the world. 40 million daily active users, already in the habit of practicing before they go somewhere. Duolingo.
Copywriter/Partner in crime: Maggie Mallon
Art Director: Meagan Riordan
We’re putting Jackson Hole on the curriculum.
The partnership launches on Instagram, where the audience already lives. We're not framing this as an ad. We're framing it as a drop. Duolingo and Jackson Hole, together, with one mission: teach people how to actually show up here. And who better to deliver the lesson than Duo, the most persistent teacher on the internet. Educational, entertaining, and impossible to scroll past.
Duolingo is famous for it, swapping the app icon to mark seasons, streaks, and special moments. Users who start the Jackson Hole course unlock their own: Duo, suited up in full hiker gear. A badge of honor sitting right on your home screen.
Getting people to start the course is one thing. Keeping them going is another. That's where Duolingo's notorious widgets come in. People who download them tend to stick around, and for good reason. Visit Jackson Hole will partner with Duolingo Studio to create a series of custom widgets showing Duo experiencing everything Jackson Hole has to offer, while nudging users to keep their streak alive. Timely, hard to ignore, and always on brand.
The Duolingo Course
The Museum of Modern Hubris
The Home Ranch Welcome Center still welcomes you. It just has something new to say. Tucked inside: a museum dedicated to the artifacts of irresponsible tourism.
Smaller versions of the exhibits will live in REI locations and the airports tourists pass through most: Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas Fort-Worth, and Chicago O'Hare. The places where journeys start, and layovers happen. A last chance to learn before you land.
Because those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The Field Guide
Through a partnership with Field Notes, Jackson Hole produces a limited-run release of Jackson Hole Field Notebooks. And you can only get one two ways: complete the Duolingo course, or walk through the Modern Hubris museum at The Home Ranch Welcome Center or any of its airport extensions.
Pocket-sized, slightly rough to the touch, and designed to feel like a 1950s naturalist's handbook. Vintage scientific illustrations. A deadpan formal tone applied to very contemporary problems. It covers terrain, wildlife, local vocabulary, and the kind of visitor you don't want to be — all in the voice of a naturalist who has seen too much and forgiven most of it.
It's not trying to be comprehensive. Its job is to make the person carrying it feel like they belong to a place, rather than just passing through it. The Field Guide lives in a pocket. And the things people carry into the wild are the things that travel home with them — and get handed to the friend who asks where you went.
Print ads will run in the magazines our audience actually reads: Outside, National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveler. Plus Delta and United seatback screens and in-flight magazines on routes to Jackson Hole.
Because let's be honest, the kind of person who wants to visit Jackson Hole still likes to read hard copies of things.
And maybe that person is me. Who's to say?
Agency: Duft Watterson • New Business Pitch
CDs: Ward Duft and Tony Hart