WORK FOR GOOD CUT - DIGITAL

Tennessee Sound Sites - Tennessee Department of Tourist Development
Travel / Tourism

Shortlist

Title:	Tennessee Sound Sites
Brand:	Tennessee Department of Tourist Development
Product/Service:	Travel / Tourism
Client:	Tennessee Department of Tourist Development
Agency:	VML Kansas City
Production Company:	Plan A Films
Editing Company:	Plan A Films
Creative Director:	Allie Pierce, Chief Creative Officer, VML Kansas City
Release Date:	2025-04-10
Duration:	02:29
Notes for Judging:	CATEGORY RELEVANCE: Blind communities need and deserve full, not fragmented, digital experiences. To provide that, Tennessee Sound Sites redefined the digital vacation planning experience by transforming standard image alt text into immersive, sensory-rich lyrics. These descriptions were crafted by talented, world-renowned Tennessee songwriters, who transport people to places with their words every day. And now, their lyrics are vividly conveying landscapes, culture, and emotion for blind and visually impaired travelers. By injecting much needed creativity into image alt text, we set a new industry standard for descriptions, adding a fundamental — yet often overlooked — element to digital accessibility: human connection. BRAND CONTEXT: When planning a trip, most of us rely on images for inspiration. But blind communities rely on image descriptions that are usually bland and unhelpful. Or, even worse, 56% of images aren’t accessible to people with visual impairments, 93% of domains have at least one page with an inaccessible image, and 60% of all images online have no alternative text. To solve this, we tapped into Tennessee’s most abundant resource: songwriters. Tennessee’s music heritage is rich, with seven different genres of music being born here. There are also more songs written, recorded, and performed live here every day than anywhere else, making it the songwriter capital of the world. Through the power of their words, songwriters can transport us to new places. And now, they can help transport blind or visually impaired travelers to destinations throughout Tennessee. Making travel more accessible has been a mission for Tennessee over the last decade. From creating special viewfinders that helped colorblind visitors experience the fall beauty of the Smoky Mountains to developing all-terrain wheelchairs that make outdoor adventure more accessible, and more recently, hiring the first accessibility coordinator in Tennessee’s State Parks division. This new approach to image alt text descriptions continues Tennessee’s history of inclusion and builds on the brand’s tagline of “Sounds Perfect.” Both by establishing a new benchmark for what image alt text can be and inspiring other members of the online community re-approach their own image alt text. SUMMARY OF THE WORK: In the United States, almost 7.3 million people use screen readers to browse the internet, making it one of the most common assistive technologies. The problem is that most image descriptions these screen readers access are bland and straightforward. Or, even worse, they’re not included at all. To make a more accessible travel planning experience, we turned our alt image text descriptions into lyrics written by Tennessee songwriters — people who are famous for transporting you to another place with just their words. These songwriters worked closely with blind communities to co-create hundreds of image descriptions that didn’t just describe how a place looked, but how it felt to be there. These lyrics translated and described visuals through our other four senses of taste, touch, sound, and smell. CREATIVE IDEA: People seeing photos immediately translate all the visuals into a nuanced story, but often alt text image descriptions provide limited information devoid of imagination. Which is a big deal for tourism websites and social accounts, especially when 52% of travelers say they plan trips based on imagery from potential destinations. To make a more inclusive experience, we partnered with Tennessee songwriters to reimagine our website’s image alt text as if it was lyrics from a song. Knowing many visually impaired people have been blind since birth, lyrics were written to appeal to their four other senses of sound, touch, smell, and taste. This lyrical alt text transported blind individuals to moments and memories throughout Tennessee. By pushing the boundaries of creativity with image alt text descriptions, Tennessee connected with a new audience in a new way that went far beyond just describing what’s in a photo. EXECUTION: The development and execution of the campaign was rapid, taking about five weeks to go from picture to lyrics to live on the TNVacation.com website. It launched with 500 lyrical image alt text descriptions. By the end of 2025, we’ll have new descriptions for 1,000 images on the website. Every step of the way, we relied on a co-creation process among blind individuals, creatives, songwriters, and developers. By welcoming and including blind communities into this process, they were able to impact the entire experience, and help impact future design and approaches to our online imagery. As part of the campaign, we created an eight-minute mini film that told the story behind the alt image lyrics, our songwriters, and members of blind communities. In just ten days, the video received 883,673 views with 2,557,560 minutes of the film watched. Or just under 5 years. The $100,000 paid media campaign leveraged YouTube and Meta, top social platforms, to promote alt text accessibility through immersive storytelling. YouTube, chosen for strong user engagement, hosted an eight-minute film. Contextual, behavioral, and geotargeting strategies reached accessibility-conscious travelers and screen reader users, driving awareness and inspiring inclusive travel to Tennessee. Between paid and earned media, we generated 215M impressions. Everything drove audiences to a deeper online experience at TNVacation.com. Since the launch, visits to the site have increased 36%. Here, we open-sourced our plans so other brands could optimize their alt text image descriptions, hoping to create a more open and accessible internet for more people. Since the launch of the campaign, numerous songwriters have requested to help write lyrics for images in the future, including some of the principals at NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International).