Case study: Canadian Tourism Commission "Where is this?"
(247k, Acrobat (.pdf) format)
Canadian Tourism target locals
Canadian Tourism Commission invested in a re-appraisal campaign led by newspapers, generating higher than expected results and strong call to action
Marketing challenge
Most Canadians perceive their own country as familiar and other countries as more exciting destinations for travel. Marketing efforts from international destinations had been effective in delivering this message and attracting travelers. In 2008, Canadians took 27 million trips outside the country primarily contributing to a record travel deficit of $12.6 billion.
Campaign objective
The Canadian Tourism Commission wanted to convince Canadians to travel locally. The goal was to stimulate Canada’s tourism economy and inspire them to travel within Canada by highlighting to them exotic, world-class experiences available to them in their own backyard.
Role of newspaper advertising
To reach across Canada, the campaign kicked off with a newspaper campaign. Newspapers provide strong travel content and the ability to deliver a visual making them a perfect fit for the message and the creative. It was also supported in other media including TV, online and magazine. All the ads drove to a website that provided more travel information.
Creative insight
It was agreed that the best people to convince Canadians that there are undiscovered travel gems within the country are Canadians themselves. This was the insight that resulted in the “Locals Know” tagline which was partnered with fabulous shots of places that are not typically seen or expected to be within Canada – sand dunes, a volcano, blue crystal waters and more. The print ads all had the question “Where is this?” Curious consumers were directed to a website.
Results
The campaign was a hit. Before it even reached its halfway mark, 450,000 visitors had generated over more than 3 million page views – exceeding industry averages. Post campaign results indicated that more than 1.3 million Canadians booked a trip after seeing the ads and 15% of those opted to change their holiday from going abroad to staying at home in Canada.
What the client said
“Exploring Canada is an extremely ‘emotional’ and ‘visual’ experience. Investing in newspaper was the best thing we could have done to bring Canada’s tourism brand to life and get people to book now. While Canadians were being inspired by intriguing imagery of great experiences across our nation they had the information on how to book immediately at their fingertips all in one print ad space. That is the beauty of newspapers which contributed to the phenomenal success of this campaign.”
- Gisele Danis, Executive Director, Strategic Initiatives, Canadian Tourism Commission.
Download a PDF of the case study below.
Source: The Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA)
