Making Connections

MAKI NG CONN ECTIO NS

Professionals in all industries TRAVEL THE WORLD to find inspiration, immersing themselves in new cultures and new ways of thinking. For our global marketing issue, the Marketing News team wanted to save you the airfare by delivering stories of inspirational marketing campaigns from far-flung locations to you. This is a quick read, easily digested in one sitting—on a domestic flight, say—but it offers plenty of brainstorming fodder for your brand’s next move.

Many of the campaigns that piqued our interest—and that we hope pique yours—were launched by the tourism and hospitality industry. Others pertain to public service and health. All are compelling because they authentically connect messages with causes, and brands with users, and because they PROVIDE A GLIMPSE OF THE CULTURES to which they’re targeted. Join us as we circle the globe with eight quick stops on our itinerary.

C A M PA I G N C O V E R A G E B Y

christine BirKner, erin golden A N D Molly soat

August 2015 | marketinG newS

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 23

23

7/23/15 5:30 PM

24

Image courtesy of Promote Iceland.

Icelanders bearing one of the country’s most popular names were tapped to help promote tourism opportunities to adventurous globetrotters.

marketing news | August 2015

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 24

7/23/15 5:30 PM

Iceland

A Marketable MonikER

Image courtesy of Promote Iceland.

Iceland targets global travelers with the help of a few friendly Guðmundurs As with a country’s most popular dishes or quirky forms of entertainment, common names can convey local flavor—some more so than others. Where the U.S. has John or Mike or Joe (or Jackson, Jacob and Liam, of late) Iceland has Guðmundur—and more than 4,000 of them, out of the country’s total population of 329,000. Those thousands of Icelanders named Guðmundur, the male version, or Guðmunda, the female version, recently were tapped to help promote the country to adventurous globetrotters in search of their next destination.

On April 28, Promote Iceland, the Reykjavíkbased national tourism organization, launched “Ask Guðmundur,” a social media campaign to highlight the diversity of year-round experiences across the country. “Ask Guðmundur” is billed as “the world’s first human search engine,” and through the fall, people can submit questions on Promote Iceland’s social media channels using the hashtag #AskGuðmundur. A volunteer (one from each of Iceland’s seven regions) named Guðmundur or Guðmunda answers questions via online videos or through written responses on Twitter and Facebook. Videos include one portly Guðmundur whipping off his shirt and happily jumping into a hot spring and a Guðmunda laughing as she narrowly avoids being attacked by a flock of birds in Reykjavík’s town square.

The campaign’s goal is to increase year-round visits to Iceland beyond the high season of the summer months from travelers in its main target markets: the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden and Finland. “We want to get people to spend more, stay longer and see more in Iceland,” says Inga Hlín Pálsdóttir, director of tourism and creative industries at Promote Iceland. “We’re targeting what we’ve identified as the ‘enlightened tourist,’ someone who, in the off-season, is ready for new experiences. He’s highly educated and has a higher salary, he wants to share the experience and he’s on social media. We don’t think about it in terms of age. We think more about people who want the adventure and are ready to go and travel farther.”

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 25

“Ask Guðmundur” videos highlight unique Icelandic experiences, such as visiting thermal pools, climbing on glaciers and eating shark, and offer tips for how to stay happy during an Icelandic winter. “Being outside in the winter cold is something that we want people to celebrate, and we want them to see how enjoyable Iceland is during that time,” Pálsdóttir says.

Promote Iceland worked to find Guðmundurs and Guðmundas of different age groups, but they aren’t actors, Pálsdóttir says.

“They’re just normal people. We have several marketing officers around Iceland, so we had a brainstorming meeting where we told them we were looking for a Guðmundur or Guðmunda. It was an easy process, actually. Everyone we asked said yes.”

The videos’ human element has helped pique global travelers’ interest in all regions of Iceland, she says. “You’re not just seeing an advertisement from one of the travel companies. You’re seeing someone walking on a glacier or taking a helicopter ride, or seeing the reindeer in eastern Iceland or experiencing the biggest waterfalls. It’s the personal touch that we’ve been going for.”

Thus far, Pálsdóttir is pleased with the campaign’s ROI. For a budget of $600,000, the campaign to date has garnered 267 million total impressions on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The launch video, itself, garnered 1.8 million views on YouTube. “For the people who were exposed to the campaign, there was a 165% increase in those people Googling Iceland,” she says. “It’s increasing interest in Iceland, and they’re looking into what Iceland has to offer.” The campaign will continue through the fall of 2015.

Icelanders also have embraced both the campaign and their local spokesmen and -women, Pálsdóttir says. “Locals say, ‘This is my Guðmundur,’ and, ‘Have you seen how many questions there have been to our Guðmundur?’

It’s a bit of a competition between regions, which we didn’t really foresee. They’re really proud of their Guðmundurs.”

—CB

August 2015 | marketing news

25

7/23/15 5:30 PM

Cheap Lodging Gets Cheeky Many millennial-age travelers are eschewing traditional tourist spots for far-flung locales and adventures with like-minded backpackers. In an effort to attract this modern generation of globetrotters—and the friends they meet along the way— Dublin-based Hostelworld.com tapped a few adventurers in their 20s and 30s to promote the site via more grassroots-seeming messaging that steers clear of commercials’ typical corporate veneer. “We needed to be even more closely tied with the global hostel industry and all that that stands for,” says Ottokar Rosenberger, CMO of Hostelworld.

The company tasked its creative agency, London-based Lucky Generals, with creating a low-budget video that appeals to millennial travelers. “We wanted to capture the unique spirit of the hostel experience,” says Helen Calcraft, founding partner of Lucky Generals.

“We documented seven young travelers who had only just met, going skinny-dipping for the first time in a stunning Mexican sinkhole.

As a consequence, the film feels organic, spontaneous and exciting as their genuine emotions unfold. We combined the realness of their adventure with a beautiful yet gritty camera style that celebrates both the location and the liberating, shared moment.”

The video, which features actual backpacking hostel-goers, not actors, first aired in the U.K. on May 31 during the popular HBO show Game of Thrones, and launched in full on June 1 on mobile, digital and social platforms, with paid posts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. It also ran in movie theaters and on TV throughout the U.K., and still images from the campaign ran on billboards and digital screens at train stations. The video ends with the tagline, “Meet the world,” prompting viewers to go to Hostelworld.com for a behind-the-scenes

26

Image courtesy of Hostelworld.

Booking site Hostelworld.com dips into millennial-focused tourism marketing

Hostelworld’s cheeky ads are intended to appeal to adventurous millennials.

look, featuring interviews with the travelers discussing the virtues of staying in a hostel.

While the video is being shown only in the U.K., Rosenberger hopes that the campaign will expand globally next year.

“The idea behind the campaign focused on our customers’ desires to meet new people while traveling. The commercial shows how that enhances your travel experience,” Rosenberger says. “It gives you the sense that only a hostel can give you that unique opportunity to meet the world, as we say.”

The commercial and the “Meet the World” campaign are designed to appeal to millennial travelers who aren’t average tourists, Rosenberger says. “Our target market is highly social, digital natives who value experience much more than souvenirs. This message connects

particularly well for that millennial audience.”

While the commercial could be considered a bit racy for TV, Rosenberger says that once people see the spot, they’re inspired, rather than offended. “Certainly in the U.K., we had a lot of conversations with media owners about getting this on the air and online, but I’m happy to report that all media owners approved the ad. For us, it’s more about the joyous moment than the ‘racy’ nature of the spot.”

While it’s still too early to gauge any direct results of the “Meet the World” commercial on Hostelworld’s booking rates, Rosenberger says that the indications are positive. “When we look at Google trends and Hostelworld traffic in the U.K., we’ve seen a massive impact.”

—MS

marketing news | August 2015

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 26

7/23/15 5:30 PM

Dubai IReland

Selfies of Arabian Nights Dubai’s restaurateurs are embracing social media to promote the tourism hotspot to hip, hungry patrons

While Paris and Rome once cornered the international scene, other global hotspots have been taking a bite out of the food tourism market. In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai’s posh restaurant and hotel industry grew 17% in 2012, its highest growth rate since 2007, according to the Dubai Statistics Center, a government-run office that collects and analyzes economic statistics for government and journalistic use, and its tourism revenue is estimated to increase by more than 4% annually through 2023, according to the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“Dubai is a hot destination in the Middle East,” says Martin Kubler, a former hotel general manager and founder of Iconsulthotels, a Dubai-based consultancy for the hospitality industry—and Kubler’s pun seems to be intended. “There are a lot of new restaurants opening up all of the time,” he says. “Celebrity chefs are coming over.

There’s a lot of competition in the market.”

Dubai-based restaurants are turning to visual-friendly social media sites, especially Instagram, to help put their local fare on the map. “Instagram marketing is successful in Dubai because it attracts the right people on all sides: the right customers, restaurateurs and startups,” says Kubler, who focuses on social media campaigns for clients throughout Europe and the Middle East.

“Instagram is clearly the tool of choice for food photography. … It’s extremely popular with food bloggers, chefs and foodies, in general,” he says.

Salt, a burger-and-fries food truck in a vintage Airstream camper that travels across Dubai’s beachfronts, uses Instagram to generate buzz and increase demand.

Customers are encouraged to post photos of Salt’s fare along with the hashtag #FindSalt to help others track the truck’s location. So far, Salt’s social media efforts are paying off: Since the truck opened in May 2014, Salt has garnered nearly 82,000 followers on the site, and one Instagram user even bragged that he had Salt’s food flown to him from Dubai to Kuwait.

“All of the marketing and pre-opening and opening promotion [for Salt] was done through Instagram,” Kubler says. That grassroots-like social media promotion has created a bit of panache for the food purveyor, according to Salt’s founders, Amal Al Marri and Deem Albassam. “It’s a destination that makes UAE resident feel like tourists, and tourists feel like residents in the know,” they said in a press release.

Salt’s founders and other Dubai restaurant owners have found that, to be successful on Instagram, you need to do more than display your menu’s highlights, Kubler says.

“Especially with food trucks, posts have to be about the people, the behind-the-scenes shots, the atmosphere, the kitchen. … Who’s the chef? Who’s serving the food? How is it prepared? What is the food like? What is the atmosphere like? It gives a 360-degree view of what a restaurant is like. Especially in a place like Dubai, there are a lot of choices of where to eat out. When I’m deciding where to eat dinner, my social network will influence me heavily. The more people you can get talking about the place, the better.”

—MS

Images courtesy of Salt

via Instagram.

August 2015 | marketing news

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 27

27

7/23/15 5:30 PM

Asia Africa Middle East L at i n Am e r i c a

Africa

Clean Bill of Health Unilever’s Lifebuoy soap aims to teach kids the benefits of scrubbing up

Medical experts long have said that one of the best defenses against the spread of many germs and bacteria is thoroughly washing your hands on a regular basis, and many marketers the world over have worked to encourage the same behavior—and to good effect.

In 2008, Lifebuoy soap, owned by Rotterdam, Netherlandsand London-based Unilever, joined with other CPG companies and UNICEF, the World Bank and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, among others, to create the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap.

To publicize the effort, they launched Global Handwashing Day, recognized by the United Nations, and heralded by schools, governments and the private sector the world over to encourage children to wash their hands frequently and to take the habit home. The day, which falls on Oct. 15, kicks off weeks-long school programs aimed at teaching children good handwashing techniques. Lifebuoy worked with child communication and behavior experts to craft a 21-day in-school program with puzzles, comics and games, and the brand distributes its soap throughout communities in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

Global Handwashing Day is part of a larger effort called “Help A Child Reach 5,” which includes videos and social media efforts intended to help quell the spread of germs causing diarrhea and pneumonia, the two most common causes of death for children under the age of 5. Using the hashtag #HelpAChildReach5, Lifebuoy has produced and distributed two videos about the role of handwashing in keeping young children healthy, and the videos have been viewed more than 30 million times. In 2014, Global Handwashing Day was recognized in 53 countries, and

28

high-profile advocacy events were attended by the first ladies from countries including Sri Lanka and Kenya.

In the weeks leading up to Global Handwashing Day, the campaign is promoted through print ads in local and national newspapers, TV commercials, radio campaigns and digital ads. Facebook and Twitter play a large role in spreading the word about Help A Child Reach 5, where social media influencers, politicians and handwashing advocates can easily share information about simple hygiene practices.

According to Anila Gopal, global social media manager at Lifebuoy, Help a Child Reach 5 has received support from the UN, securing the cause’s place on global development agendas. “Countries host high-profile events

marketing news | August 2015

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 28

7/23/15 5:30 PM

Image courtesy of Unilever.

Lifebuoy distributes soap samples and educational materials to encourage handwashing habits in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

attended by schoolchildren and families to raise widespread awareness and [drum up] media coverage. Children perform a handwashing pledge, sing songs and [perform] handwashing dances to show their communities what they’ve learned,” Gopal says. “Lifebuoy seeks to take the lead to promote handwashing through its product offering as well as public advocacy and thought leadership.”

Global Handwashing Day has been successful because it targets children in their most impressionable years, when they’re eager to learn new skills and to share their

newly acquired information with others, Gopal says. “Childhood years are the most formative, when children develop many lifelong habits and behaviors. Children are unquestionably the catalysts for individual behavior change, but how do you shift local and cultural norms for positive behavior change? Not only are children at an age when they can be influenced, [but] they also have a huge amount of ‘pester power’ to insist on behaviors at home with their families. By teaching a child, you are simultaneously educating families, schools and villages.”

—MS August 2015 | marketing news

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 29

29

7/23/15 5:30 PM

When a drink is placed on each coaster, the cold glass causes the ink to react, altering the images to reveal bruises on each woman’s face.

Image courtesy of Ogilvy & Mather Japan.

A Chilling Message Drink coasters in a chain of Japanese bars prompt patrons to think before they drink When you’re raising awareness about a societal issue, you’re often charged with giving a voice to the voiceless or a face to the faceless. You want a message that gives consumers pause, or an arresting image that prompts consumers to think. When Yaocho Bar Group, a Tokyo-based bar chain, took on the cause of trying to quell domestic violence, it created a message intended to prompt consumers to think before having another drink.

Excessive alcohol consumption is fueling a rise in domestic violence in Japan, and Yaocho wanted to help put a stop to that, says Genta Yamakage, president of Yaocho. “While people should still enjoy a drink and relax after working hours, [we wanted] to encourage them to do so responsibly and to acknowledge some of the implications of excessive drinking. Our desire was to highlight an increasingly volatile social issue and trigger a more proactive

30

conversation around responsible drinking habits.”

In May 2015, Yaocho, working with Tokyo-based advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Japan, launched a set of coasters in its bars with portraits of Japanese women. The coasters were printed with a thermochemical ink so that when a drink is placed on the coaster, the cold glass causes the ink to react, altering the image to reveal cuts and bruises on the woman’s face. Each coaster bears the message, “Don’t let excessive drinking end in domestic violence.”

“To address an issue like this, we knew that we needed to shock patrons into drinking responsibly while they were actually drinking,” says Ajab Samrai, chief creative officer at Ogilvy & Mather Japan.

“The fact that the bruises appeared while people were drinking but not before, and that they got clearer and clearer the more they drank, surprised patrons and

[potentially] shocked them into drinking responsibly. When we did the photo shoot, we were quite particular about the acting in the pictures. We wanted women with fairly normal expressions on their faces but who would look completely transformed with the bruises.”

The campaign’s budget was $6,000 and it generated more than 65 million media impressions globally, including articles in Ad Age and Adweek, according to Samrai.

“It worked fantastically well. Yaocho became the talk of the town. They got more PR than some of the biggest brands in the country,” he says.

Customer feedback has been positive, as well, Yamakage says. “Regular customers are keen to take our message on board. We are pleased by the response, and we very much hope that it will help to drive a positive impact on the community.”

—CB

marketing news | August 2015

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 30

7/23/15 5:30 PM

Winning in Overtime

Costa Rica

J a pa n

Image courtesy of Ogilvy Costa Rica.

A Brazilian telecom provider scores with a new take on soccer sponsorship

Telecom provider Claro gave Costa Rican pre-paid phone users extra cell phone minutes when soccer refs added extra minutes to a game.

When São Paulo-based telecom provider Claro S.A. moved into Costa Rica, it needed to find a way to gain the attention of the country’s 1.2 million pre-paid phone users.

In the Costa Rican market, most of these users pay for just the phone credits that they need at any given time to make their daily calls, typically refueling their phones with credits worth about $1 per day. Most are in a constant cycle of charging up and then nearly running out of time for their calls. Claro seized on that tension by tapping into another place where even a few more minutes can be crucial: extra time at the end of soccer games.

With its “Extra Minutes” campaign, Claro sought to reach out to the hundreds of thousands of fans tuning in to watch the Costa Rican soccer team, Deportivo Saprissa, and to ensure that its marketing message would stand out amid the clutter of ads at the stadium.

According to Ogilvy Costa Rica, which developed the campaign, the potential reach was high: 25,000 prepaid clients in the stadium at each game, 450,000 more watching on TV or listening on the radio, and more on social media. The goal was to enter into the soccer fan’s experience, rather than being an outside distraction that was easy to dismiss, says Jesús Revuelta, general creative director at Ogilvy Costa Rica. His team figured that the best way to get involved would be in the game’s final moments,

when referees provide a few extra minutes—about five, on average—to make up for time lost during pauses in the game, or when players switch in and out, allowing for last-minute scoring chances and therefore boosting fans’ engagement through to the final whistle.

Claro’s “Extra Minutes” campaign mirrored the soccer refs’ generosity, offering users the same number of prepaid minutes for free as the number of extra minutes that the refs tacked onto the game. The Claro bonus time was announced to fans in attendance and displayed on the referees’ electronic board in the stadiums, and also communicated live on TV, radio and social media. Claro took the campaign a step further by becoming a team sponsor for Saprissa.

For a minimal financial outlay, Claro was able to tap into more than 90% of the Costa Rican market, thanks to the campaign.

Claro customers were afforded around 50 million extra minutes for prepaid calls, which allowed people to look at the ads as a service, rather than just as a marketing message, Revuelta says.

“At the end of the day, most of the promos or ads are so easy to identify as a selling action that it is too easy to … ignore them,” he says. “When brands try to find a way to be integrated into people’s lives, results can be great.”

—EG August 2015 | marketing news

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 31

31

7/23/15 5:30 PM

marketing news | August 2015

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 32

Image courtesy of FCB New Zealand.

32

7/23/15 5:30 PM

New Zealand

No More ‘Beersies’ for You

Image courtesy of FCB New Zealand.

New Zealand’s government takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to promoting healthier hydration New Zealand is known for its adventurous, fun-loving culture, but that celebratory nature currently carries a hefty price tag. Excessive drinking costs the country’s taxpayers $4.9 billion per year when the country factors in both associated healthcare costs and the loss of work time, according to the government-backed, Wellington, New Zealand-based Health Promotion Agency (HPA).

In 2014, HPA was looking for a lighthearted way to encourage people to ease up on drinking, and Auckland, New Zealand-based advertising agency FCB New Zealand, which had been working on health and wellness campaigns with HPA since 2008, was tasked with creating a new message.

Through consumer research, FCB New Zealand’s creative teams found that most New Zealanders find it hard to say no to drinking in social situations, says Carl Sarney, senior planner at FCB New Zealand. “If everyone else is saying, ‘Let’s have another round,’ and you’re the odd one out, it puts you in an odd position, so most people give in and drink anyway and exceed their limit, or they hide their drinking.

They do things like fill up beer bottles with water or tip shots into potted plants.”

Adds James Mok, executive creative director for Asia Pacific at FCB: “[Drinking culture] is ingrained from an early age in New Zealand, and it’s pretty hard to shake. Fiftynine percent of New Zealanders expect to be teased if they switch from alcohol to water,” so the FCB team set out to make drinking water a socially acceptable alternative to having another round. In November 2014, they launched six 30-second TV ads that take a fun, humorous approach to promoting healthy hydration. The team borrowed tactics from beer ads, with the slow-motion pouring of water into a frosty beer mug accompanied by a deep, masculine voiceover: “What is it that sets this beer apart from all others?

Maybe it’s the crisp, refreshing taste … or maybe because it’s not even actually beer. It’s water. Not Beersies: The beersie that’s water.”

“In the past, with a lot of these campaigns, it would be about telling people, ‘You can’t do this,’ ” Sarney says. “The last thing we wanted to do was create a campaign that looks or sounds like it was coming from the government.” Rather than running an anti-drinking PSA, the team hoped to persuade people to drink a glass of water between rounds, Mok says. “At no point did we say, ‘Don’t drink.’ The

campaign definitely takes the piss. People could say: ‘No, mate, I’m going to sit this one out. I’ll have a Not Beersies,’ and everyone would laugh, and it would be OK. Instead of people pretending they’re drinking, we socialized that moment. Instead of saying: ‘Oh, he’s had too many drinks.

Oh, no,’ people can say: ‘That guy’s a bit drunk over there. He needs a Not Beersies.’ ” The team launched the campaign like a beer brand would, creating a logo for “Not Beersies” with the slogan, “Brewed

by Clouds,” outfitting bars with “Not Beersies” coasters and bar runners, adding “Not Beersies” water taps to rows of beer taps, and distributing free bottles of water with the “Not Beersies” logo.

To encourage moderation at house parties, FCB runs social media giveaways for Not Beersies Home Brew Kits, with glassware, bar mats, T-shirts and hats, as well as instructions for “brewing” Not Beersies: Turn on your water tap and fill your glass. It promotes the kits through a series of online videos that are posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. “It’s just completely stupid, but we put those on social media, and people went gangbusters,” Sarney says.

The campaign, which also included outdoor ads and radio spots, is ongoing. FCB declined to reveal the budget, and HPA was not available to comment prior to deadline.

HPA and FCB surveyed the target audience of 18- to 29-year-olds before and after the campaign launched to gauge results. Prior to the campaign, 59% of the target audience would expect to get teased if they were drinking water and their friends were drinking alcohol, and after the campaign launched, 22% fewer 18- to 29-year-olds expected to be teased, 33% of 18- to 29-year-olds reported drinking more water instead of alcohol, and 37% said that they drink less alcohol overall, according to Mok. “This campaign … positively influenced society, and not in a preachy way,” Mok says. “It shifted from pure messaging to getting consumers to tangibly change their behavior.”

Andy Nathan, CMO of Victors & Spoils, a Boulder, Colo.-based advertising agency that has worked with First Lady Michelle Obama and the Partnership for a Healthier America on marketing campaigns encouraging healthy eating, agrees. “Historically, government-sponsored health messages have a stigma of being boring and preachy. This campaign never really talks about the problem, itself. They aren’t fearmongers. They did a great job of sidestepping all of what you come to expect from a government PSA. They stole a page from the ‘big beer brand’ marketing playbook, and they did it in a way where the consumer is in on the joke.”

—CB August 2015 | marketing news

MN August 2015 1-65-GoldArticle-edit-7-23-15.indd 33

33

7/23/15 5:30 PM