Marketers have tried all sorts of complicated and often clever ways of getting travellers to talk about the destinations they represent, with mixed results.
There was the extremely well-known Best Job in the World campaign from 2009, loved by PR and advertising types but launched just as the global economy started to tank.
And, more recently, the promotion campaign for the Maldives which turned sour when human rights protesters waded in to highlight some of the aspects of the country that tourism officials are obviously less keen for travellers to know about.
But for every faux pas in the Maldives there is a success story, not least the MySwitzerland campaign which married social media with humour and some clever use of technology.
Some might, however, suggest that tourism boards are actually just over-thinking it all a little bit.
Don’t worry about blogger trips, or creating fancy Facebook pages or having complicated photo upload competitions through Instagram – just pay for a group of consumers to visit your destination for a weekend and ask them to share their experiences in every social media channel they can find.
This appears to be the idea behind the Human Brochure – the latest project from the people trying to promote the Australian city of Canberra on its centenary.
The grand title of “Human Brochure” skews the fact that essentially its a massive media trip… but without the media. Consumers simply enter the draw, tell the site about their likes and dislikes, and hopefully get selected to go on the trip.
“All we ask is that you share some photos or videos or just people about your favourite bits,” says the promotional video accompanying the campaign.
No need to worry about journalists and bloggers going on about ethics on trips, etc – maybe officials at the tourism board have simply realised that handing out a load of free travel to Joe Public (who, arguably, are perhaps less worried about whether their reputation is tarnished by tweeting constantly about their amazing experience under a common hashtag) is the better way to get some buzz about a destination.
Interesting idea.
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About Kevin May
Hi Kevin,
Do you know which creative head is behind the idea of the strategy – means – with which agency do Canberra Tourism work together?
Greetings from Austria
Martin
Hey Martin,
Here you go:
The Human Brochure was developed in collaboration with Australian Capital Tourism’s media agency Maxus and associated agency, The Works Sydney. Porter Novelli Sydney are involved in the national PR campaign.
http://www.campaignbrief.com/2012/08/australian-capital-tourisms-th.html
- Troy
I really liked this campaign. If you want to know why its so incredibly progressive, read Grouped by Paul Adams… we could be seeing a lot more of this type of activity from DMOs.
Rodney, do you think we (tourism) will get to a point of saturation with type of campaign? And with marketing overall? Where the consumer cannot tell if the friend really likes the product, or received the product for free?
And if a lot of DMOs choose this strategy does that dilute the impact of the strategy?
Curious.
- Troy
I appreciate the direct aspect of this campaign…skip the middleman, communicate with the traveler and encourage social interaction. Plus, it certainly is a direct path to social ROI.
That said, the price tag ($1m) seems a bit ambitious. I am sure they can give away that many trips, but will they get that much return?
Depends on how well they manage the social masses that will descend upon Canberra.
- Troy
Although I think it is the correct way to market for a large destination no way will they get the return they think they will. How much value are they placing on a few tweets, posts etc into cyberspace?
The only way that works as a marketing route is f it is consistent over a period of time and has interaction going on. I do think we will be seeing a lot more of this though