Rebranding a destination is one of the most challenging tasks in hospitality marketing. You’re not just changing colors and logos—you’re reshaping perceptions, realigning visitor expectations, and potentially disrupting years of established awareness. Many destination marketers struggle to effectively communicate these brand shifts, resulting in confused audiences, wasted resources, and fragmented brand experiences across channels. How do you ensure your rebranding efforts actually resonate with potential visitors? Which platforms drive meaningful engagement with your new brand identity? And how can you measure whether your rebrand is actually working?
Today’s guest has navigated these challenges with remarkable success. Cristal Rodriguez, Marketing Director at Tempe Tourism Office, has spearheaded a transformative rebranding initiative that’s setting new benchmarks for engagement and campaign performance. With over 16 years of marketing leadership experience across diverse industries, Cristal brings a wealth of expertise in storytelling, digital strategy, and community building. Her innovative approach has not only elevated Tempe’s brand presence but has created a blueprint for how destinations can leverage social media as the catalyst for successful rebranding.
Social Pulse Podcast host Mike Allton asked Cristal Rodriguez about:
- Platform-specific strategy matters – Learn how to tailor your rebranding approach across different social platforms to maximize impact while maintaining brand consistency.
- Content drives transformation – Discover how strategic content creation can effectively communicate your destination’s new identity while engaging both current and prospective visitors.
- Measurement beyond likes – Understand the metrics that truly matter when evaluating the success of your destination’s rebrand on social media channels.
Learn more about Cristal Rodriguez
Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode 💜
Full Transcript
(lightly edited)
Mike Allton: Welcome back to Social Pulse Podcast, where we’re digging into the challenges, successes, and stories of social media, community professionals in the industry just like you. Subscribe to gain valuable insights that you’ll be able to apply to your own work and social presence from each and every episode … Hey, Cristal, welcome to the show.
Cristal Rodriguez: Hey, thank you.
Mike Allton: Before we dive into that entire rebrand itself, can you briefly describe what prompted you guys to undertake this rebranding initiative?
Cristal Rodriguez: Yeah. It really came from a place of just wanting to keep up with the city itself. So Tempe Tourism’s organization had not had a rebrand in the last 13 years, and in those 13 years, we noticed, obviously, the city is moving and grooving, and growing. Tempe is definitely becoming an epicenter of economic development. We wanna make sure the tourism messaging aligns with that as well. So the growth of the city, the growth of the industry as well, was also a big factor in why we wanted to rebrand.
Mike Allton: That makes a lot of sense. It seems like a great opportunity to rebrand and take advantage of a lot of those changes. Now, when you decided to use social media as the kind of primary vehicle for the rebrand, how did you figure out which platforms would be most effective for introducing Tempe’s new identity?
Cristal Rodriguez: Yeah, for us, it was a lot of research, but because travel and tourism is such a visual industry. Now more than ever, people are using platforms like TikTok and Instagram to research travel inspiration, and that has grown so much in the last, call it five or six years.
So you know, people are turning to social media to now plan their itineraries, and that is such a big movement for us, so we knew that when we did this rebrand, social media was definitely top of mind, right up there with advertising and media placements. So those two platforms, TikTok and Instagram, are where the majority of our owned and target audiences hang out, so it was only natural to us that those would be the most effective platforms to introduce the new brand identity.
Mike Allton: Got it. So when you decided, okay, we’re gonna focus on TikTok and Instagram, was there anything that you did to prepare those platforms for this rebrand?
Any steps that you took?
Cristal Rodriguez: Yeah. So, because we lean so heavily on those platforms. Social was actually the first to roll out. We had certain assets prepared, ready for the rollout on social media, so that when the day actually came to switch everything over, we had everything we needed. So this included designing new reels and TikTok, video templates with the new brand colors and fonts. We did all of that beforehand, of course, designing new highlight covers, designing new graphic templates, and creating our announcement video.
Right before we launched, I’d say a couple days before all of the staff changed over their LinkedIn profile pictures or their cover photos to reflect the new brand. we changed our icons in all of our social channels, not thinking that anyone was really going to notice, and we didn’t expect anyone to, but we knew that when we made that light switch, social was gonna go first, so it was important for us to have all of those assets already ready.
Mike Allton: Got it. All right, so you’re focusing on Instagram and TikTok, but we’re also making sure that our employees have updated cover photos and information on LinkedIn, and new social icons on other platforms. A lot of destinations, I think, would struggle trying to be consistent across all these different platforms, even with Instagram reels and TikTok there are some variations and differences, I think, in how we need to prepare and tailor, and caption this content.
How does your team kind of approach this consistency challenge during the rebrand?
Cristal Rodriguez: Yeah. For us, it was really just getting ahead of social design early. It was a pretty seamless transition to go from our old branding to our new branding. So, just making sure that everything was designed previously as I mentioned, social was the first to go live, so really just getting our hands dirty with the assets that were created, figuring out what we love to see, what we didn’t. Oh, the logo looks really great, with this color or it really pops if you use this font here.
It was really the preparation of designing these assets first where I feel like most of our team was really intricate in helping design and put together the vision for this, because we knew that once we switched over and that first social rule went out, it was important to maintain consistency after that.
Mike Allton: I think what I loved the most about what you just said was it sounded very collaborative. It sounded like it was a team effort from top to bottom, which is fantastic. A lot of brands aren’t doing it that way, and they should.
As we’re thinking back to that initial period of rollout to social, primarily Instagram and TikTok, were there any particular campaigns or posts that kind of stood out in your recollection that really performed well during that time?
Cristal Rodriguez: This is a hard question, but to be honest, I don’t think that there was one specific piece of content that performed exceptionally well during the rebrand, specifically because the rebrand was basically like a switch, immediately going from old to new.
Our romantic Valentine’s Day restaurants did exceptionally well, and that was one of the bigger pieces that launched after, the new stuff, that generated over 375,000 impressions, 36,000 interactions and engagements, and I think what made it do so well, and it made it so effective, was the fact that it reflected our new branding.
So not only the more obvious things like the font, the colors, and all of that stuff, but it was very much a POV type of content, so putting the viewer in the videographer’s shoes with the videographer experiencing as they would, as a visitor would. The filming style is a little bit more elevated, but it’s still approachable, and it feels like it’s your favorite local creator creating and showing you these things that are in front of them.
So the restaurant roundups also do really well for us. These feature a new and elevated dining experience here in the city, and it really reflects the direction of our city and where we’re going, and exactly why we were prompted to rebrand in the first place.
Mike Allton: I love that story. I know you were saying, there wasn’t one that did particularly well, but you were really talking about, in reflecting there, is how important it is to have alignment between your brand’s style and approach, but also you know, what your target audience is really particularly interested in, in this case, we’re talking to people who wanna see what it’s like to visit Tempe and do some of the wonderful things there …
Cristal, let’s step back for a second because I wanna make sure everybody listening understands where you’re coming from.
Could you take just a moment to share what your role is and what your organization actually does for the community?
Cristal Rodriguez: Yeah, absolutely. So my role here as Director of Marketing for Tempe Tourism is really to oversee all of the outward-facing material that leaves our office and into the hands of our target audience.
So our big mission here is to attract visitors from outside of Arizona into Tempe. I think a lot of DMOs may get caught up in interest city competition, whereas we’re not really focused on that. I think any visitors to Arizona is a win for all of us, and so with Tempe specifically, just really showcasing the different experiences that people can have, right?
When you fly into the greater Phoenix area, you’re just 10 minutes away from Tempe, you’re gonna have a different experience, a different vibe, a different feeling when you get here than when you were to go to say Scottsdale or Phoenix. And I think all of us here in the greater Phoenix area have done such a good job of marketing and kind of labeling our cities and what we’re good at.
And so we work on our streets, right? Tempe is great for a hidden Gem. We are the epicenter of rooftops, so to speak. We have a huge rooftop renaissance that’s going on in our city right now. We’re the highest bus rooftops here in Tempe. Whether it be to grab a drink, pool site, or whatever, take in the scenery, I should say.
That’s best done here in Tempe. We obviously have Tempe Town Lake, one of the only water features here in Phoenix where people can paddle, boat, kayak take in the sunset. So we definitely play to our strengths here in Tempe. Our target audience, like I said, is obviously anyone outside of Arizona.
We’re looking for those people in Chicago. We’re reminding those people, in Nevada and in Portland, in LA and in San Francisco, why their travel to Arizona should be important, and when they’re here, why stop and Tempe is important.
Mike Allton: Love it. You guys. Super really valuable purpose and for those listening, if you’re in a similar role with a similar organization somewhere else in the country. This is a valuable episode for sure, and we’ve also talked to folks from Hocking Hills in Ohio and the Poconos in Pennsylvania. I’ll link to those shows down below so that you can further your journey and make sure you’re getting the kind of ideas and input you need.
But let’s get back to rebranding because I think a lot of the folks listening who may have gone through this may have felt a lot of resistance internally or externally. I’m wondering how you might have used social media to address some of the concerns that might have come up about the rebrand.
Cristal Rodriguez: This rebrand was such a big overhaul, and I’ve mentioned how collaborative the entire office was in making this a success. We always joke in the office that it was our internal therapy session for a year and a half, right? Almost two years. But a part of that journey was a social listening, heavy on research, but a part of that was a social listening perspective.
And the feedback we were getting from our audience already with our current brand, right before we made the launch, over, we really were very well received once we rebranded. Tempe is growing and transforming into a new destination. I think our audience was excited to see that this brand reflects the positive changes to the destination, right?
The vibe, the feeling you get when you get here. I feel like the colors that are elevated in the way we speak about the city, as elevated. Our website is launching soon, that whole overtaking and the copy that we write, the way we’re talking about these destinations in terms of our local destinations, our restaurants are must-see places. The way we’re communicating that to the audience is completely different than what it was two years ago during this process.
What we’ve seen so far is great feedback. Everyone has been very kind in terms of the look and feel. We got a lot of “Oh my God, it’s about time” or t”his is great” or,”now I’m interested” or “now I’m watching,” so it’s all been good, and we’re very lucky for that.
Mike Allton: That sounds amazing. What a fun experience. You talked about how you had a short video that announced the rebrand. I don’t know if there was a lot of other content that you put out specifically about the rebrand, or from that point, it was mostly just regular content that was rebranded.
I don’t know. Did you think through how much to talk about the rebrand itself, how to balance that against the normal stuff that you’re needing to put out?
Cristal Rodriguez: I will tell you that, when we did this, obviously, this is the most important thing for our office, right? In a very long time, we were very excited about it.
But did Joe from Chicago care about that? We really had to dig deep and kind of tone it back a little. So we did the rebrand reel, just really short and sweet here’s our new look, here’s what you can expect. A lot of the social strategies and all of the good things were staying the same, you’re just, it’s gonna look and feel a little bit different. But as we went along the journey and as we’re putting out new ads and new looks and new feels, we kept getting the same questions from the stakeholders like, how long did this take, who was involved in it? What did this look like?
We just kept getting a lot of questions. So just recently at our annual meeting we produced a video with a production, a local production company here called ReelBros, and they took us through and just got short snippets of the journey of the rebrand process.
They caught a couple of scenes where the whole group was going through word pairings, color palettes, just bits and pieces, and eventually, we did some side interviews. Eventually, this huge eight-video came together, and while we were listening and watching it, it was very emotional for all of us to see.
We questioned whether or not we should show it at the annual luncheon because we thought, God, it’s basically eight minutes of, how we did this rebrand and how many people really care about that.
I think they care about the end result. And quarter flip, we decided to show it. And actually, it has been one of our most performing videos, both on YouTube and, just people in the industry that have heard about it, that email us like, Hey, can I get a copy of that? Can I get a link to that? I wanna show my team or people who were in the audience. Hey, I was there, I really wanna watch that video again, I wanna show this person.
So we were really surprised at how much traction the rebrand video got, but it is on our YouTube, and yeah, if you have a spare eight minutes, we take you from start to finish, and it was a really cool project to put together.
Mike Allton: I love that so much, we’ll dig that up and we’ll link to it in the show notes below ’cause we had a similar experience at Agorapulse. Before the pandemic, we used to have company-wide annual retreats in the north of France, which is as amazing as it sounds. Obviously the pandemic kind of killed all that, but at the last retreat we spent a lot of time and effort filming everything that was going on at the retreat lots of B rolls interviews, drone shots, the whole works, and that compiled into a five to minute video, just similar to yours, and I remember a lot of people thinking, eh, it’s just us who cares really, but no, people loved it. We loved it.
We loved seeing ourselves and our friends and the meetings and the experiences that we had ’cause it was, like any retreat, it’s a mix of fun and work, so there’s meetings to talk about branding and positioning alongside archery and line dancing contests out in the yard. So it was weird, but people loved it, and I think that’s important, particularly when it comes to social media, people wanna see behind the scenes.
Cristal Rodriguez: Like I said, we’re very excited that people got as excited as we did. I know the first round with the staff, when we saw the finished video, it was a little emotional, and we all kinda just looked at each other, and are we getting emotional about this? This is so weird. It was unexpected.
But we couldn’t be more proud of what, what came together and what came out of it, because I think the video really did take us through again, like from start to finish, but it really did capture the emotion of this rebrand, and that’s what we were aiming for so very proud of that one for sure.
Mike Allton: I think for all of you listening, it will also be very inspiring if this is something that you have on your roadmap to go through in the next six to twelve months.
I’m wondering, Cristal, one of the questions I always love to ask folks in your seat is how they’re currently measuring social media.
How do they know whether or not it’s impacting their business? ‘Cause that’s a real challenge, I think, for a lot of hospitality, but I’m also wondering how that relates to your rebranding efforts, if you were paying attention to social media results as they happened.
Cristal Rodriguez: We can measure KPIs such as saves and shares on certain pieces of content. The stronger indication is actually a visit, and we’ve been able to measure in a huge way the impact of social media has been through efforts, and hearing from real people and businesses in the community.
So we’ve had hotels come to tell us the restaurants have been booked out because one of our videos went viral, we’ve had local vendor market organizers contact us and let us know, they received an uptick in attendees after we posted about their event. It’s not the most straightforward and cut-and-dry way to measure business impact. For us, it is the most real and meaningful way.
Mike Allton: That makes a lot of sense.
My last question for you, Cristal, I’m just wondering, are there any tools or resources that have been valuable to you throughout this process that might help some other hospitality marketers going through something similar?
Cristal Rodriguez: Okay. Two big programs that were integral in this rebrand process, was a great project management system. We use Asana, which was such a big part in gathering information, timelines, and deadlines throughout all of the departments here at Tempe Tourism.
At any given moment, anyone from the team can hop into the Asana page in the rebrand folder and check to see where we’re at. Likewise, from my seat, I was able instead of team Z or emailing or asking a million questions. It was easy for me at any given time to go into Asana and pop into the project and see,this is the last thing that happened, here’s where we’re at. Great.
So, Asana was pretty big for us, also our branding agency, Atla*, was a big proponent of Miro and Miro boards, and so our entire rebrand process in terms of design happened in Miro. So all of our team meetings, we would all log in and get into a Miro board and go around, and we were able to give real-time edits as they were happening. You’ll notice that our word mark and our logo have the iconic Tempe Bridge, which wasn’t always the case. And so in earlier Miro boards and earlier iterations of the logo, we were able to go in and say, while it was being presented, oh, this part looks weird, or was that water right there? or what is this piece? And so it was a really cool tool to use, so I think great project management system. And then again, from the design aspect, Miro was great to use as well.
Mike Allton: That’s so cool. Terrific advice. We use Asana nonstop. At Agorapulse, I have become an Asana convert. I wasn’t a fan at first, but now I love it, particularly with these podcasts. This is one of four different podcasts that I’m running at Agorapulse, and that would be lost if we didn’t have really detailed Asana projects for each one with sections for every episode ’cause fortunately, once I get done recording any particular episode, I get to hand it all off to the team for editing and distribution.
Cristal Rodriguez: There you go.
Mike Allton: So that’s fantastic. Cristal, you’ve been absolutely amazing. This has been such a really fascinating interview. I know people are gonna have additional questions for you, maybe they wanna reach out and just connect. Where should they go?
Cristal Rodriguez: You could always head to tempetourism.com, our About Us page, where you can find me there, and my email is in there. Also, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m always willing to talk about this rebrand and answer any questions. Happy to help if I can.
Mike Allton: Fabulous. Thank you, Cristal. Thank all of you for listening. That’s all the time we’ve got for today. Friends, as always, we’ll have all of Cristal’s links and everything we talked about in the show notes below, and don’t forget to find the Social Pulse Podcast on Apple and drop me a review. Let me know what you think, what you’d like me to cover in a future episode. Until next time.
