Americans spend billions traveling the United States to witness the changing fall foliage. One of the state of Tennessee’s biggest tourist attractions is its fall scenery, but our competitors are also known for their fall scenery. We needed to show the beauty of fall foliage from a new perspective to break through, and through our research, we learned that more than 13 million Americans had never seen the fall colors because they are colorblind.

So we created the Colorblind Viewer — the only scenic viewer that helps colorblind people see fall’s true colors. The viewers were designed with special lenses that alleviate red-green color deficiency and installed at Tennessee’s best scenic lookouts. We then captured reactions as people used them to see fall colors for the first time, and used those reactions to create an emotional online film.

The campaign became the feel good story in America with features on The Associated Press, “NBC Nightly News,” the “Today” show, ABC, “Innovation Nation,” and others, generating more than 662 million earned impressions and $2.5 million US in earned media value. Our video content received more than 9 million video views and 200,000 social engagements. And people traveled and hotel demand increased 8% year over year, further proving the success of the campaign.

Because of this campaign’s success, there are now 12 Colorblind Viewers installed throughout Tennessee so that the public can experience the beauty the state offers. Due to the volume of requests from other states, Tennessee is also currently helping to facilitate a process to make it possible to install the Colorblind Viewers in other parks and states around the county. What started as an innovative idea to drive tourism turned into a life-changing product that will now make the beautiful landscape of America inclusive to more people.