Josh Duhamel stars in ads about his 'favorite things to do in North Dakota' (2024)

TAMMY SWIFTThe Forum

Actor Josh Duhamel, one of North Dakota’s most enthusiastic spokespeople, has hit the road on a lightning-fast bro-venture to promote the state via two new North Dakota tourism spots.

The short videos were both created by Duhamel’s production company Dakota Media and are posted on Facebook and other social media. Digital marketing is also driving traffic to the videos on tourism websites and YouTube, said Sara Otte Coleman, North Dakota’s director of tourism and marketing.

One spot shows the Minot native praising the state’s golf options and testing out courses such as The Links of North Dakota in Ray, Bully Pulpit in Medora and Hawktree in Bismarck.

The second video, titled “Josh Duhamel’s Favorite Things About North Dakota,” opens with the star astride his Honda Monkey motorcycle and looking straight into the camera to declare: “I love North Dakota. So I thought it was time to hit the road, get back to my roots and reconnect with the people.”

It then shows Duhamel on a high-speed road trip through the Peace Garden State, along with the Dakota Media crew, driver (and Duhamel’s father-in-law) Jeff Amari, and a golden retriever. Along the way, they make stops at popular spots including Lake Sakakawea, Medora, Salem Sue (the giant Holstein cow statue in New Salem) and the Jamestown buffalo statue.

The video also showcases eateries and watering holes such as 10 North Main in Minot — which is owned by Duhamel's sister -- Whiskey Flats in Minot, Ranchman’s 23 Saloon and Steakhouse in New Town and the Little Missouri Saloon in Medora.

The spot packs lots of action into one minute, showing music-fueled jump cuts of Duhamel golfing, high-fiving a friend, speeding along on his motorcycle, standing in a ditch with the dog and yelling, “Whoooo!,” fishing, playing more golf, watching drag races, toasting before a shot at a bar, posing for a photo with a young fan, boating, bonding with a baby burro, experiencing van trouble, shooting fireworks, taking in a bonfire and perching on a crew member’s shoulders to polish up Dakota Thunder, Jamestown’s iconic concrete buffalo.

“His thought was he takes his job as a North Dakota ambassador pretty seriously, so he’s pretending he’s cleaning (the buffalo),” Coleman said. “He was just polishing him up so he looks good for all the other visitors who are coming.”

'Just go for it'

The state’s partnership with Duhamel started in 2014 when Coleman met Duhamel at an event and learned about his genuine enthusiasm for his home state. Duhamel was frustrated that more people didn’t know about the state he loved. He signed on to provide the voiceover for that year’s tourism campaign.

“Even from it just being his voice, we saw over 4 million impressions on Twitter from him directly — so we knew it had legs and built on it,” Coleman said.

The state also successfully partnered with Duhamel in 2016 and 2019. TV spots featuring the “Transformers” star in 2016 netted over a billion impressions (or ad views). “That was the first time we ever hit the big B. We had 3 million broadcast, 52 million on social. We were on ‘The Today Show,’ People magazine, ABC, the Washington Post — just a lot of high-end, tier-one media — and so we rode that, and we loved that campaign,” she said.

Coleman said the state’s tourism budget isn’t large enough to shoot an entirely new campaign featuring Duhamel every year. (North Dakota’s total tourism operating budget for 2025 is $14.8 million, she said, compared to South Dakota’s budget of $22.8 million and Wyoming’s budget of $31 million.)

However, the Duhamel campaigns have been so successful at attracting viewers that the department continues to license pieces from those earlier campaigns, she said.

The effectiveness of celebrity endorsem*nts has been proven repeatedly in research published in respected publications like the Harvard Business Review, Coleman said. "The value obviously in working with Josh and Dakota Media is that we get the really unique perspective and then we get that genuine ambassador out of Josh. It’s not like we’re paying some random celebrity to talk about us, but then you get the celebrity status, too. So when you think about it, it really is a win-win."

For the latest campaign, Duhamel’s Dakota Media actually approached North Dakota tourism about making the videos.

“I kind of loved the idea because you want it to be authentic,” Coleman said. “You want it to be in his voice, his style. And he's so creative. This was an opportunity for them to really go out and see North Dakota with fresh eyes.”

Last summer, Duhamel, his Executive Producer Josh Algra and crew members piled into a couple of vehicles and shot the footage over a heavily booked three-day period. Although Coleman’s team laid out some loose themes beforehand, the main focus really was on what Duhamel loves most about North Dakota.

“We didn’t have a script. For the most part, we said just go for it,” Coleman said.

The state paid Dakota Media $180,000 for the videos.

“I would say that probably what we ended up paying them just covered production and travel and basic expenses,” Coleman said. “By the time you paid all of the other fees involved, I don’t think much of it made its way to Josh.”

She said Duhamel also offered services — such as a meet-and-greet at the Phoenix golf opener where Dakota Media’s North Dakota golf spot premiered — at no charge. “Even if you look at just the stories — for example, an Instagram story, you figure that, with his ranking as a celebrity, it normally would be valued at just about $10,000 for reels and stories. So when you start adding those up, we definitely think it was a strong return on investment," she said.

When Duhamel posts the North Dakota pieces on his own social media, it reaches far more people than the tourism department could hope to reach on its own, Coleman said.

While the tourism department’s Facebook has 86,000 followers, Duhamel’s Facebook followers top 7.1 million.

“His engagement is about twice ours, and the reach is almost 10 times ours,” Coleman said. “And you know with our small budget, we have to do things that cut through and get people’s attention. So we just think this is one of the tactics that has been really successful in opening people’s eyes to North Dakota and creating more awareness for our state.”