Pittsburghers Will Get First Look at Campaign, Which Promotes Pittsburgh as a Welcoming City

PITTSBURGH – Today, VisitPITTSBURGH executives along with County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Mayor Bill Peduto introduced a new national marketing campaign, Pull Up A Chair, You Are Welcomed Here, that promotes Pittsburgh as a welcoming city. The campaign rolls out locally today, nationally April 29, and with a second push in the fall. VisitPITTSBURGH expects the campaign to show what makes Pittsburgh and Pittsburghers unique and be a campaign unlike any other destination marketing organizations’ campaigns.

This campaign is also unlike other VisitPITTSBURGH campaigns that primarily captured the beauty and only-in-Pittsburgh attractions. This campaign also will capture the spirit of Pittsburghers and how they warmly welcome the thousands of annual visitors from around the world. The campaign is inspired by the act of offering someone a chair, which is a universal sign of hospitality and respect. The campaign will showcase a welcoming Pittsburgh, a message that both our County Executive and Mayor have been promoting for years, as well as pay homage to the Pittsburgh parking chair as a sign of inclusiveness.

“At VisitPITTSBURGH, we have the reputation of producing very successful tourism, and meetings and sports development videos and marketing campaigns,” said Tom Loftus, chief marketing officer for VisitPITTSBURGH. “This time, we want to focus on the welcoming spirit of our city and our residents by encapsulating moments that will encourage people to visit our great city and inspire Pittsburghers across the world to share the message. It will also allow Pittsburghers to see what VisitPITTSBURGH does, since more than 95 percent of our marketing efforts are done outside the region,” said Loftus. To view and share the video, click here.

The campaign will be mostly digital, across many platforms, and include a large amount of paid media, and boosting on social channels, especially Facebook. It will involve public relations efforts on both local and national levels and be incorporated into all VisitPITTSBURGH marketing and sales efforts, including the KidsBURGH campaign. Visitors arriving at the Pittsburgh International Airport and those traveling along the Parkway West will be greeted by digital signage featuring the campaign.

The campaign video will play on a video board in Times Square for four weeks in addition to being part of an intro package for the A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Mister Rogers movie when it plays at five theatres in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. over a four-week period. Overall promotion of the campaign will target both drive and fly markets including Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa and Washington, D.C.

Though much of the new VisitPITTSBURGH campaign creative was done in-house, creative storytelling videographer, Christian Lockerman, helped capture the ideas for Pull Up A Chair, You Are Welcomed Here on film.

With the assistance of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, VisitPITTSBURGH also invited three local artists to the press conference today to paint iconic chairs that will bring local awareness to the campaign and involve the local arts community. The artists featured at the event were Reginald Stewart, a nationally-recognized pop artist based in the McKees Rocks area; Sara Tang an artist, illustrator, and creative consultant based out of Pittsburgh; and Lizzee Solomon, who works in a wide variety of media, including painting, laser cutting, sculpture, and illustration, and is currently based in Pittsburgh.

VisitPITTSBURGH encourages organizational partners and the Pittsburgh community to be a part of this campaign. There are many chair photo opportunities at city attractions, museums and events that will offer an impactful way to spread the message by sharing on social media channels using #PullUpAChair and #LovePGH. After all, it is the hospitality that Pittsburghers extend to visitors that has made this campaign possible.