Stay Wild

Jackson Hole Travel & Tourism and its longtime integrated AOR Colle McVoy, return with a new campaign for the destination’s award-winning “Stay Wild” platform as a reminder to put down your phone, step outside, and reconnect with what’s real. Launching mid-November across social, OOH, display, and video, the creative media is aimed at eco-conscious experience chasers, designed to remind them that true escape happens in-person, and in Jackson Hole. Jackson Hole’s “Stay Wild” brand platform, created by Colle McVoy 8 years ago and still going strong – has propelled the last real mountain town into one of the most sustainable travel destinations.

Consumers hold the world in the palm of their hands, yet experience it through a pane of glass, trading goosebumps for glow screens. “Stay Wild” turns that insight into impact, using eye-catching creative featuring Jackson Hole’s winter wildlife and rugged landscapes to remind us what being alive actually feels like.

Online Videos: “Untamed” short videos highlight experiences across Jackson Hole’s most famous attractions, like world-class skiing, nightlife gatherings at live music venues and local watering holes like the Cowboy Bar, all serving as inspiration to find your herd and start living life through experiences you can only find IRL.

TV/Movie Binging: Targeting YouTube TV viewers as they binge on premium TV/movie content (CTV), creative will mimic an ad experience YouTube TV already brings to their viewers, a Moment of Zen, which is typically calming content. Instead, this will be a bait-and-switch to bring viewers a “Moment of Zen Send,” starting with a calming vista and then disrupted by the wild you can experience in Jackson Hole. ASMR-type sensory details that define the Jackson Hole experience, like the crunch of snow beneath your feet and the gust of alpine wind on your face – these are the sensations people crave yet rarely experience, but Jackson Hole offers them in abundance.

Street-Level DOOH: Digital outdoor panels in high foot-trafficked areas (NY, SF, LA, Chicago, Seattle, etc.) will intercept people on their commutes to and from work. Creative shows the wildlife of Jackson Hole refusing to be boxed in by a screen, breaking free toward passersby – and encouraging them to do the same.

The average American adult spends 7 hours a day looking at a screen – that’s 17 years of our lives scrolled away. As screen time hits record highs, Stay Wild aims to shift attention from passive consumption to active experience. Jackson Hole isn’t just a destination, it’s an antidote to digital fatigue.

“In a world dominated by screens, the greatest adventures are the ones we almost forget to take,” says John Neerland, Group Creative Director, Colle McVoy. “‘Stay Wild’ is our way of interrupting the ordinary and reminding people that the wild still exists, waiting for them to step into it.”

For more than eight years, the Stay Wild platform has embodied the spirit of Jackson Hole as raw, real, and untamed. A place that allows us all to live more truly to our wilder self. This new iteration builds on that legacy with a creative media approach designed to meet people exactly where their attention lives: on their screens.

“Travel has the power to reset your perspective, and Jackson Hole uniquely blends adventure, beauty, and authenticity,” says John Bowers, Marketing Director of Jackson Hole Travel & Tourism Board. “From sending it down the mountain to witnessing wildlife in its natural habitat, ‘Stay Wild’ captures the spirit of this place – inspiring people to step beyond their screens and reconnect with the wild for themselves.”

Through an arresting blend of storytelling and technology, Colle McVoy flips that behavior on its head, turning social media into a gateway back to nature. The new work builds on last year’s award-winning “Selfie Control” campaign, where the brand turned social media into a tool for wildlife safety. Using real-time spatial recognition, a custom Instagram filter warned users when they were too close to animals — automatically identifying species and applying national park safe-distance rules. Made open-source to support 433 parks across 85 million acres and 400,000 species, the effort drove a 60% increase in engagement with wildlife safety content.

"Scroll Breakers" targets platforms and specific placements (IG Reels, Stories, TikTok, YouTube Shorts) where people mindlessly scroll their day away. Scroll Breaker creative will be used to literally create a jump-scare moment for the viewer. In one example, bison appear to charge through your feed, “cracking” the screen and jolting viewers from digital autopilot, a visceral prompt to stop scrolling and start living.