Ask The Boss Campaign

Transcription

1 Ask The Boss Campaign 1

2 Supporting The Ask the Boss campaign has now ended but a demo link replicating the app is here: Please see supporting video as part of this submission: 2

3 Background Hong Kong is a place of many different experiences from dining; to exploring its unique East meets West culture; the great outdoors; a wide range of festivals and traditions; and more. The challenge facing the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) was that this was often overshadowed by the common and stereotypical image of Hong Kong as simply being a shopping mecca. Also, travellers and their travel behaviours are changing. They have higher expectations and are looking for unique experiences - authenticity is their primary motive. This is especially true for Asia over the last few years, with a new breed of travellers, FITs (Free Independent Travellers). FITs are identified as more open-minded and adventurous than their previous generations, so typical tourism campaigns with over-stylised imagery may not resonate with them. Our target audience is not only looking for authentic travel experiences with insight into the local living culture of the city, but also an experience to share via social media as a means to express what type of person and traveller they are. 3

4 Objectives Targeting Southeast Asian and Taiwanese travellers, two groups highly active on Facebook and other digital & social platforms. We set out to achieve record levels of awareness and engagement more specifically: Arouse 12M awareness [impressions] of My HK Guide Drive 600,000 engagement of FB campaign Drive 4,000 My HK Guide registration & 3,500 mobile apps downloads Grow Facebook followership by 20,000 fans compared to the pre-campaign period. Target Markets: Young segment, especially from Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan. 4

5 The Creative Idea: Ask The Boss Ask The Boss was a unique engagement program whose main objective was to show Hong Kong hospitality by offering a competition to fans to win a trip to Hong Kong and giving them a VIP experience at a major- Hong Kong event so they could become Hong Kong advocates and share their feelings and experiences to other potential visitors. It is common for the FIT segment to have been in employment and therefore have a boss, meaning a concept that was easily relatable, whilst presenting an outlet for them to express their enthusiasm for a holiday to visit Hong Kong and their creativity. 5

6 The Creative Idea: Ask The Boss To reach our ambitious goals and achieve new record levels of social engagement, users could win a trip to Hong Kong and explore the city with the new My Hong Kong Guide smart tool, both serving to amplify the experiences of travellers in Hong Kong. We also partnered with local key opinion leaders, and released four branded vignettes on both digital and TV channels, each featuring a different kind of authentic Hong Kong experience to counteract the stereotype of the city being only good for world-class shopping. 6

7 My Hong Kong Guide Your Local Travel Mate My Hong Kong Guide is an integrated tool whose purpose was to assist in our target audiences travel journey experience right from the beginning, which included the winners of the competition. As the app helps prepare everything for the user s trip to Hong Kong all they simply needed to do was Ask The Boss to take their holiday. The campaign idea also coincides with the core strengths of the tool: PLAN - select authentic experience in the Ask the Boss! competition EXPLORE - win a free trip to Hong Kong with local experience SHARE - share the letters and experience via social media channels 7

8 Ask The Boss in 3 Simple Steps 1. Participant selects their favourite authentic experience in Hong Kong with reference to the vignettes featuring local key opinion leaders. These included a foodie tour, shop-and style tour, a family tour and a sun-tanning tour (corresponding with HKTB brand s essences) 1. Participants encouraged to Ask The Boss and write a virtual annual leave letter, which was judged on their creativity and enthusiasm to visit Hong Kong. 2. This letter could be shared with their friends list to encourage votes for their letter to achieve a bonus prize, whilst also helping to promote the campaign by spreading awareness of the competition so others could enter themselves. 8

9 Ask The Boss Hong Kong Experiences Different types of Hong Kong experiences, such as indulgence with a Michelin starred lunch or an urban escape with tours of the islands were introduced to participants, who were asked to select their favourite. Four applicants would win not only flights and accommodation to Hong Kong, but also the experiential tour they selected. 9

10 Ask The Boss User Submissions We encouraged creativity with users needing to write a virtual application for annual leave letter to their bosses on why they deserved time-off to visit Hong Kong to experience the full range of its diversity. And collected insight from the Ask The Boss! letters, identifying preferred experiences and interests for Hong Kong. A sample of the creative Annual Leave letters from participants 10

11 Ask the Boss! - Winners There is more power and influence with real experiences and word of mouth when it is coming from a trusted source, such as a friend or family member, so it was valuable that the winners could share their unforgettable experiences before and after their trip on their social media channels or blogs, and potentially become Hong Kong advocates. (See left with a winner posting whilst in Hong Kong then reposting a photo months later to reminisce about his Memorable, Unforgettable experience.) With Ask The Boss!, the winners had their wishes fulfilled by providing them not only with a trip to Hong Kong but the special Hong Kong experience they selected in the competition, which they shared with their networks on social media, to then be re-shared on HKTBs Facebook page to tap into our fan s feelings and emotions, showing real and authentic Hong Kong experiences from people who had visited Hong Kong as a more compelling reasons to visit Hong Kong. 11

12 Ask the Boss! Winners Hong Kong Experience 12

13 Promoting The Campaign We promoted the campaign with strategic use of HKTBs online platforms, closing the business cycle by multi-channels retargeting The campaign was promoted on Facebook and YouTube Users were directed to the Facebook application via strategically targeted ads on Facebook. Promotional messages were blasted to followers on WeChat. Travel bloggers were invited to participate and share the campaign on their channels. To further boost downloads of My Hong Kong Guide, a series of retargeting ads were launched to encourage downloads and usage. Also, Facebook retargeting ad was used as a reminder to DiscoverHongKong.com viewers to enter Ask The Boss! Facebook campaign. 13

14 Promoting The Campaign The campaign was also supported by promotions on the Hong Kong Tourism Board website DiscoverHongKong.com with banners and a webpage 14

15 Promoting The Campaign And supported by enewsletters to the DiscoverHongKong.com website subscribers. 15

16 Results Objective: Arouse 12M awareness [imp] of My Hong Kong Guide Achieved 24M awareness [imp] via Facebook campaign, surpassing our initial goal by 183%. Objective: Drive 600,000 engagements in the Facebook campaign Achieved almost 770,000 engagements, surpassing our objective by 28%. Objective: Drive 4,000 registrations My Hong Kong Guide & 3,500 mobile app downloads Achieved 6,661 registrations of My Hong Kong Guide, 67% more registrations than initially planned Achieved a total of 5,772 app downloads, surpassing the objective by 64% Objective: Grow Facebook following by 20,000 fans compared to the pre-campaign period. Increased our Facebook following by 36,271 fans, surpassing our initial goal by 81%. Bonus (1) Amplified reach and awareness via the participation of influential bloggers and their networks Bonus (2) Collected insight from the Ask The Boss! letters, identifying preferred experiences and interests for Hong Kong. 16

17 Thank You 17