The Campaign

When you think of visiting China, you might consider the history of Beijing, the sophistication of Shanghai, or the ancient Terracotta Warriors of Xi’an. In contrast to these destinations, popular for the icons they represent, the Western city of Chengdu was not on the map for travelers. Our challenge was to get Chengdu on the tourism radar with a global audience. Our objective was to drive Chengdu’s tourism growth rate by linking Chengdu as the iconic home of the Giant Panda. While there are differences and specific restrictions for every country, the biggest challenge was sensitive media and consumer sentiment towards an increasingly powerful China. Therefore, any branded content or stories about Chengdu needed to be told by trusted friends or family, not by any official source.

Results

Our challenge was to get Chengdu on the tourism radar with a global audience. Our objective was to drive Chengdu’s tourism growth rate by linking Chengdu as the iconic home of the Giant Panda. The idea was to connect the world with Chengdu’s uniquely lovable icon. We did this by launching a global search for ambassadors for the Chengdu Pandas. We named them the “Chengdu Pambassadors.” We knew to reach a truly global audience, we needed to use the only truly global social platform: Facebook. This was a first for any Chinese government agency. A custom Facebook application was created where hopefuls began their PandaQuest on our global Page. To really stand a chance, hopefuls needed to collect friend testimonials and supportive “panda hugs” to prove themselves worthy of becoming a Pambassador. Developing content closely with the media plan was key. We used a targeted mix of Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, and YouTube media to extend campaign effectiveness. Finally, we used Page Post Ads and Sponsored Stories to share Chengdu pandas beyond our fans, to engage with their friends, and ignite the graph to reach millions of people around the world.

Although it was a campaign targeting global audiences, we needed to make sure the content relevant to each country’s audience. Utilizing the geo-targeting functionalities of Facebook, we ran original, localized post on a daily basis in 9 countries and 7 languages. Singapore posted hand-drawn panda comics, the UK jumped on the Gangnam style meme with “panda style” and the US tracked the birth of the San Diego Zoo’s panda cub. We optimized our local content from page insights to publish more of the stories our audience loved.

The campaign exceeded expectations, with content reaching more than 110 million people on Facebook alone and recruited 225,000 PandaQuest applicants. Even Mark Zuckerberg gave our branded content a “thumbs up.” The campaign generated 1.6 billion media impressions, including 900 media outlets across 30 countries in 13 languages. Awareness of Chengdu as the hometown of Giant Pandas jumped by over 20% in our most important markets (source: Facebook brand tracker, December 2012). Most importantly, by connecting Chengdu to its most lovable icon, pandas, we were able to drive a 30.3% increase in international visitors to Chengdu year on year from 2011 to 2012.