Client: Tourism Ireland
Brand: Tourism Ireland
Project: Discover Ireland
Media: TV

DESCRIPTION

Brief

We were appointed to address the issue stagnating visitor numbers to Ireland, caused largely by the advent of low-cost carriers providing access to new ‘sexier’ destinations.

 

While consumers felt warmly towards Ireland – describing at is somewhere they would visit ‘one day’ – the challenge was to convert this general interest into an active interest.  The perception, however, was that although it was a ‘nice place’, there wasn’t anything sufficiently unique to choose it above somewhere more ‘exotic’, such as, say, Budapest.

Solution
Our research showed that the target audience, defined as sightseers and culture seekers, responded to the idea of “great places and activities brought to life by great people”.  More importantly, it showed that they like to feel that they’ve had a holiday that no-one else has had, that is unique to them.

Based on these insights, we developed the “Discover your very own Ireland” campaign thought (also abbreviated to “Discover Ireland”). This was developed as a through-the-line campaign, across TV, Cinema, Radio, Press and Online and launched in January 2006. The ‘discover’ thought was also leveraged in the media – for example, the online elements ‘build’ the more the users show an interest in them.

In the face of increased competitive spend, the campaign has nevertheless achieved an 11% increase in visitor numbers on last year, with a 10% increase in bed nights and revenue). In recent tracking, the campaign has scored well on all Key Performance Indicators, showing a significant uplift in the numbers of people “considering going to Ireland next year”.

Meanwhile, despite a relatively low media spend, the TV has achieved a high level of recall, appearing in Marketing magazine’s ‘Adwatch’ section. (Interestingly, consumers are recalling the ads as ‘Discover Ireland’ as opposed to ‘Tourism Ireland’, demonstrating that the brand idea is resonating particularly well.)