Chicago is a city that break curses and push boundaries. A city that's changed the course of history and the flow of rivers. At a time when the narrative was being shaped by others, the city needed to tell a uniquely Chicago story that owns our city’s narrative the only way Chicagoans can—authentically and unapologetically.
The core challenge was to challenge traditional tourism clichés to tell Chicago's true story with a bold, dynamic attitude that would resonate with Chicago residents, national and international leisure travelers, meeting planners, and the travel trade. The city needed a compelling and differentiated creative platform that could be consistently applied across all media to inspire visitation.
Launched summer 2025, "Never Done. Never Outdone." is a campaign invites travelers to get to know the real Chicago by showcasing our welcoming spirit and hardworking ethos, featuring culture makers and residents from across our 77 neighborhoods. Along with a new campaign, we also elevated Choose Chicago’s brand visual identity and messaging.
The project was an integrated campaign and comprehensive brand relaunch for Choose Chicago, the city's destination marketing organization, designed to redefine and promote the authentic, vibrant identity of the city. The initiative involved refreshing the brand’s entire look, feel, tone, and digital experience, from initial sizzle video and OOH ads to a website refresh.
The campaign was driven by a year-plus long brand strategy effort consisting of over 300 community and industry listening sessions, focus groups, sentiment surveys, social listening research, and brand showcases with partner agency MMGY.
Guided by the sentiments of resiliency, city pride, and constant innovation, "Never Done. Never Outdone." is a creative platform that celebrates Chicago’s relentless spirit and unmatched culture. It's brought to life through bold, authentic messaging, ownable Chicago-inspired graphics, and unscripted photography moments.
Debuting on the international world travel stage in June 2025 as Chicago hosted IPW, the campaign launched locally and nationally with organic social and content, paid social, display, OLV, OOH and influencer work in key national markets, including New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles. The campaign also took flight internationally with a robust multi-media and OOH strategy to showcase Chicago's welcoming spirit in Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. This strategy was rolled out with a phased launch that also debuted Choose Chicago's brand refresh, including a revamped brand narrative, landing pages, website refresh, partner toolkit, and brand guidelines.
Not only did the campaign gain awareness locally and nationally as well as in trade publications such as AdAge, the campaign's digital components immediately demonstrated strong user quality, with the launch landing page achieving a 71% engagement rate, significantly surpassing the 55% sitewide average. The full campaign was cited as a key contributor to Chicago's record-breaking summer for tourism, driving 24.5% of all paid social sessions for the brand. All of these efforts contributed to Choose Chicago being awarded Conde Nast Traveler's Best Big City for the the 9th year in a row.
Photography by Kathleen Hinkel and video production by October TV.
