When the world shut down in 2020, Aruba faced an existential challenge.<\/strong><\/em> With 93% of its GDP tied to tourism, the island nation had to find a way to keep travel top of mind \u2014 and to do so in a way that would resonate with an audience whose behaviors and attitudes were shifting by the day.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the recent <\/span>Corporate Research Conference,<\/span> Andy Davidson of Big Village and Kyle Krueger of <\/span>Deep Focus<\/span> shared how their teams partnered with the <\/span>Aruba Tourism Authority<\/span> to navigate this moment. Aruba\u2019s story represents an important lesson for business leaders: <\/span>Research cannot live in isolation<\/span><\/i><\/b>. To be effective, it has to be connected to planning, creative, media, and measurement.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n More competition, less certainty<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As global travel returned after the pandemic, Aruba found itself facing intensified competition. Traditional \u201cone size fits all\u201d strategies would no longer be enough to sustain growth. The Aruba Tourism Authority, working with Big Village and Deep Focus, needed to identify states of audience need more precisely and translate them into action.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That started with a robust attitudinal segmentation. But this led to a familiar industry dilemma: How do you activate and measure audiences defined by attitudes when those signals don\u2019t exist in most media or analytics platforms?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Attitudinal](\"https:\/\/big-village.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fig-1-480x503.png\" "\\"How")
![\"proxies](\"https:\/\/big-village.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/proxies-480x284.png\" "\\"How")
![\"connected](\"https:\/\/big-village.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connected-Research-Workflow-480x295.png\" "\\"How")