The Campaign

Summer season is a perfect opportunity to promote our brand in Boracay when tourist arrival is 300% higher that its daily visits. However, a bigger challenge led us to many questions: How can we stand out and engage these party animals that only aim to relax and have fun? Do they even have time to notice our brand? The island was cluttered with different ads, campaigns, billboards, flyers, events and others. This drove us to create a clever solution that would help us amplify our brand in a subtle but effective way. We integrated our annual CSR initiative in Boracay to our media campaign by activating different activities and events at the height of tourist arrivals in the island such as the activation of coastal clean-up movement, night OOH, beach party, flyers, free shuttle ride, and fun shooting games. Through these activations, we were able to use multiple media platforms.

Execution

In our coastal clean-up movement, we utilized our own Facebook page for participants to sign up. This also served as their ticket to our sundown party. In Hoop Your Trash Challenge, tourists participated in the activity by shooting their trash in vibrant garbage bins with a basketball hoop. For the free shuttle ride, tourists should surrender their trash to the pick-up station in exchange of a ticket for a free one-way ride. A total of nine lighted paraws, outrigger boats, spelled out ‘BORACAY NEWCOAST’. The paraws occupied almost 100 meters of the shore line along Station 1. For the duration of the PR campaign, our sales team were stationed at the stretch of the white beach for the project pitch about the brand and its Blacklit pool party. This was further amplified by booths and onground activations for brand promotions, to receive inquiries, and to attract more clients.

Around 300 volunteers participated in the Clean-Up Drive, which generated buzz among the tourists. Over 600 tourists were given free e-trike rides in exchange of their garbage. The e-trikes and stations were filled with banners and standees of the CSR initiative with the brand logo. The outpouring support for the brand was felt throughout the campaign via social media postings and table top discussions as noted by restaurant owners. In the Hoop Your Trash Challenge, over 500 tourists who participated in, challenged and tagged their friends on social media with the hashtag #HoopYourTrashChallenge. This edutainment model generated tremendous support that marketers expressed intent to copy the activation – one that promotes both the brand and corporate citizenship. The night installation was also a hit as social media was agog with the hashtag #BoracayNewcoast. This PR tool generated 400% increase in engagement from 2016, and reached more than 500K impressions on social media from consumers who time out to post their love for the campaign. Instagram user bhugzey posted, “Boracay Newcoast is officially my winner for best brand activation in this year’s #Laboracay2017.” Adobo Magazine website also acknowledge this execution saying “Amid ad clutter in LaBoracay, the brand campaign glows in the dark sea”. The shoot up of sales was attributed to the campaign based on the year-on-year report. This year, sales on May reached P139M, up 11.26% compared to the same period last year. In June, revenue increased to as high as 441.5% and in July, it expanded by 199%.

The Situation

As the largest real estate company in the Philippines, we took advantage of the annual Labor Day celebration in Boracay – one of the top ten beaches in the world to promote and generate sales for its mixed-use property. Attracting 67,000 tourists during the Summer season, Boracay was the perfect location to increase brand affinity, improve positive reputation and expand sales leads. The profile of beach-goers that annually flock in the island fit well into the general profile of our buyers. To achieve our business and reputation goals, the property giant implemented a multi-channel and multi-stakeholder PR campaign.

The Strategy

Through our annual CSR campaign, we have a coastal clean-up drive to gather as many tourist volunteers as possible. Another activity is the Hoop Your Trash Challenge. We installed six colourful trash bins to attract tourists to participate in the shooting game of trash. A free shuttle ride service was initiated along the main road of Boracay that invited the tourists to surrender their trash in exchange of free ride. We executed an exclusive blacklit pool party at our hotel, which is home to the biggest party pool arena in the island. During the night, we cleverly installed LED lights to a double outrigger sail boat to make it stand out in the dark horizon of the beach, fronting the ignited establishments of the famous White Beach. These marketing activations from CSR initiative became our gateway to tap multi-media platforms that would ignite the brand reputation and convert to sales.