Performance Art

Client: Black & Abroad
Product: The Black Elevation Map
Title: The Black Elevation Map
Media: Website, online video, paid and organic social, and programmatic.
Country: Canada
Date Of Campaign: February 1, 2022

Background: WAYFINDING THROUGH BIAS“Maps are not ideologically neutral location guides. Mapmakers choose what to include and exclude, and how to display information to users. These decisions can have far-reaching consequences.”* When marginalized communities navigate the world, they are asked to do so using tools that prioritize someone else’s worldview. With its new map, Black & Abroad has created a way to see and navigate the United States in a way that centers both Black users and the country’s Blackness. In this way, The Black Elevation Map is transparent and purposeful about its bias.*“How Black cartographers put racism on the map of America” – Alderman & Inwood.BLACK & ABROAD AT HOMEBlack & Abroad is among the world’s most prominent niche-audience travel brands. Known for its international trips to Latin America, Europe and Africa – and its provocative “Go Back To Africa” campaign – the brand saw an opportunity responding to global shifts in the tourism industry by shifting focus on domestic travel. With Black-owned businesses disproportionately affected by the pandemic (McKinsey), and the brand’s audience at the center of a retraumatizing conversation about systemic racism, we also saw an opportunity to provide uplifting ways for travelers to interact directly with America’s vast network of Black-owned businesses and cultural organizations.BRIEFActivate Black & Abroad as an emerging domestic travel brand with an uplifting, tech-forward engagement platform.OBJECTIVESBuild the brand’s domestic travel credentials.Stimulate interest in Black-centered domestic travel.Create a cultural counterpoint to Black pain narratives.

Idea: CASE STUDY VIDEO:https://vimeo.com/user141739323/black-elevation-map-caplesLAUNCH FILM:https://vimeo.com/user141739323/black-elevation-map-film INSIGHTWhen marginalized communities navigate the world, they're asked to do so using tools that prioritize someone else’s worldview. Change the tools, and you could change the experience.THE BLACK ELEVATION MAPAn uplifting domestic travel utility for Black & Abroad that visualizes Black cultural data as elevation. The greater the density of data, the higher the elevation.See the heights of the culture at BlackElevationMap.com.DATA VISUALIZATIONAt the center, a visualization of +330,000,000 points of data, which through exploration reveals insights about population distribution, and where Black-owned businesses and cultural institutions are likely to be present, absent, and in what abundance.THREE AUDIENCESModern Black travelers.Black-owned businesses and institutions.Allies.TOUCHPOINTSBlackElevationMap.com“A Hymn Away From Home” launch film and cutdowns27 individual business mini-documentariesGeo-targeted, signal-triggered online mediaELEMENTS OF ELEVATIONGoogle My Business APIYelp! API2020 Decennial United States Census XMLHistorical Markers Database APINASADEM natural topography

Results: BRAND BUILDING116% brand lift (*Facebook Brand Lift Study)647% greater campaign awareness than benchmark45.4 MM impressions across paid and earned channelsBUSINESS DRIVING302% increase in traffic to BlackAndAbroad.com360% increase in unique visitors971% increase in event sales and site merchAD PERFORMANCE6x the average 2022 monthly YouTube campaign view rate+116% increase in ad recall, compared to control33% beyond Facebook and Insta category benchmark for campaign awareness293% exceeded benchmarks for key traffic clickthrough rate from digital mediaDATA PERFORMANCE+330,000,000 total points of data+47,000,000 Black population data+28,000 Black-owned businesses listed+6,500 cultural markers+1,500 social sources across 53 embedded data feedsPR“Turning heads and garnering plenty of attention online.” – Condé Nast Traveller“The Black Excellence Visual We've Needed” – Travel Noir