Objectives:

• Build the Scotland brand among the London-based demographic.
• Acquire new, profiled customer data to power the customer relationship management (CRM) program.

Strategy

Research showed that the target demographic for this campaign is cash-rich, time-poor and motivated by the chance to experience new places and activities – ideally ahead of anyone else in their social circle, as they enjoy being the first to try new things and being able to boast to their friends about it! A campaign theme was developed around the concept of experiencing your perfect day in Scotland, highlighting how easy it is to get from London to the islands of Scotland and showing the unique and life-enhancing experiences to be had in Scotland.

A commercial was produced, which told a brand story about a couple flying from London to Glasgow, then on to the islands for a perfect day of activities including landing on the beach at Barra, sea kayaking, and cooking supper and enjoying a dram under the stars.

A four-week cinema campaign was booked in London and the South East. The Union was commissioned to produce point of sale postcards for distribution in participating cinemas, as well as produce a press advertisement to run in Empire magazine, the world’s biggest movie magazine, to launch the campaign. Equator was commissioned to design and build a campaign website, as well as carry out a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign to drive traffic to the site. All campaign materials used a consistent design approach to deliver a fully integrated campaign. This was based around a cinematic theme, utilising imagery from the commercial to enable instant brand recognition.

The campaign website enabled users to view the cinema commercial, and access information about the places and activities featured in the commercial, along with suggestions of other places in Scotland where the activities can be experienced. A competition mechanism and send to a friend functionality were implemented to support data acquisition objectives.

Results

The campaign ran from February to mid-March 2008 and was very successful – on both on a brand-building and direct response level – in engaging with a typically highly non-responsive consumer segment.

• Around 15,000 people visited the website over a six week period.
• A fifth of visitors entered the competition – providing profiled, opt-in data for the CRM program.
• 125,000 postcards distributed and the Empire magazine advert viewed by around 180,000 people, providing valuable brand exposure for Scotland in an entertaining and relevant way.
• The PPC campaign generated 5% of total site traffic in an extremely cost effective way.

Objectives:

• Strengthen relationships with consumers by sending a Christmas greeting that would surprise and delight recipients.
• Inspire recipients to want to come to Scotland in the winter season.
• Contribute towards data acquisition objectives by generating new, profiled, opt-in data.
• Achieve standout amongst the wide array of seasonal communications that customers receive.

Strategy

We wanted to deliver a campaign that would be fun and engaging, while at the same time would communicate information about all that Scotland has to offer during the winter months. Additionally, it was felt that giving something back to customers at this time of year would be a good way to build loyalty and goodwill. A competition element was planned and prizes sourced from partners.

Based on the seasonal theme of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, we developed a campaign around ‘The Twelve Treasures of Scotland’. A personalised online advent calendar featuring twelve interactive doors was developed. Each day was given a different Christmas or winter-related theme, for example ‘Freeze’. Opening the door would reveal a related treasure of Scotland, for example the frozen outdoor ice-skating rink in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens, and that day’s prize (also related to the theme of the day). By opening their door, customers were automatically entered into the daily prize draw.

On day one, each customer received an email wishing them Season’s Greetings and encouraging them to visit their personalised online advent calendar. On subsequent days throughout the duration of the campaign, if they so wished, customers could receive daily email reminders to go to their calendar and open that day’s door. Send to a friend functionality was included so that customers could allow their family and friends to receive their own personalised advent calendar.

Results

The campaign ran from 6th – 21st December (12 business days) and generated strong results.

• 12 days of sustained brand exposure for VisitScotland.
• Consistently high level of engagement from customers throughout the duration of the campaign.
• Profiled, opt-in data acquired for around 3,000 new contacts via send to a friend.
• Unsubscribe rate kept below 1%.
• High level of positive customer feedback.

Customer feedback:

“Hello to all at VisitScotland,
I would like to send congrats to your Marketing Division for quite simply a very interesting and innovative promotion. I work in this industry myself, hence the appreciation. Please pass on my best wishes to the team.....WELL DONE!”

- Mary

“Dear VisitScotland staff,
Thanks for including us in this mailing list. We are coming up to Scotland several times next year and we therefore showed an interest in your site. The advent calendar is a superb idea. I've never seen one before. Thanks for the help from your site for our planning.”

- Anthony Lanigan

“Can I just say that your Christmas pages are an absolute delight - what fun - brilliant! Merry Christmas”

- Barbara Stouph

“Dear VisitScotland,
I really enjoy opening your calendar every day. Thanks”

- C Stockdale