MY HONG KONG BUDDY

TitleMY HONG KONG BUDDY
BrandHONG KONG TOURISM BOARD
Product / ServicePROMOTION OF HONG KONG
CategoryA07. Travel
EntrantHONG KONG TOURISM BOARD, HONG KONG
Idea Creation HONG KONG TOURISM BOARD, HONG KONG

Credits

Name Company Position
Anson Hung Hong Kong Tourism Board Digital Marketing Manager
Adrian Ho Hong Kong Tourism Board Project Executive
Rita Law Hong Kong Tourism Board Project Executive

The Campaign

To establish genuine connections with travelers today, we needed a new tone of voice, one that travelers would identify us as a local friend in Hong Kong instead of the city’s official tourism board. This led to our idea: ‘My Hong Kong Buddy’. We teamed up with 11 locals, who know their districts inside out, to buddy up with potential travelers and became ambassadors of Hong Kong and HKTB, sharing authentic stories and insights about the city. The buddies’ stories and insights would also need to effectively reach our target audience. This leads to the development of a communication strategy that fit the digital habits and trip-planning preferences of today’s travelers. Given the overflow of information on social media, the impact of promotions and advertising tends to be short-lived. Hence, user-generated content (UGC) would become key to our campaign to live and grow beyond the short campaign period.

Creative Execution

Phase 1: Connecting with Hong Kong Buddies through our Microsite At the centre of our campaign ecosystem was our microsite, which assembled the experiences of all 11 of our Hong Kong buddies in their own separate section, using a blog format. Phase 2: Out-of-the-box Storytelling To truly let potential visitors immerse in our local buddies’ experiences, we delivered a series of strategic storytelling formats, including HKTB’s first Interactive Live video and a partnership with We5, a family of Shiba-Inus to take audiences through a tour from their perspective. . Phase 3: Encouraging Visitors’ Participation We also rolled out a series of initiatives to encourage visitors to create user-generated content, such as collaborations with international Instagrammers, video tutorials of photography techniques, and recommendations of local photogenic spots.

Our campaign was enormously successful, proving that an official government organization and tourism board could be able to adapt to today’s trends and give travelers what they want: authentic local experiences and the sense of intimacy on social media. Key Metrics: 444K browsing minutes with over 3 million total page views 2.5 million social reactions since campaign launch 6.2 million total video views 212 million impressions Over 70,000 pieces of UGC created and uploaded within a month 8.3 million likes generated from content with #DiscoverHongKong hashtag This campaign was also hugely successful when benchmarked against the performance of HKTB’s previous campaigns and average performance of its digital assets. Fans Growth: 318K (2.6 times of the pre-campaign period) Facebook: 239K (+611%) Instagram: 19.3K (+76%) Twitter: 58K (+38%) Facebook Photo post engagement: 225% above average Video views: 158% above average Instagram Engagement +828%

The creative was executed through 3 strategic phases: Phase 1: Building Awareness through Local Experts The 11 locals, who know their districts inside out, would share their stories and insights about Hong Kong in a social-friendly manner. These local experiences were all channeled with personal touches, bringing them closer to the audience. Phase 2: Maximising Reach and Engagement Through Targeted Communications We utilized various online channels, as well as numerous innovative formats to boost engagement with travelers, including: -Interactive live videos -Videos optimized for mobile-viewing -First person perspective videos -Animal-themed content series Phase 3: Encouraging Visitors’ Participation Through marketing tactics, we encouraged travelers in Hong Kong to not only create more content while in Hong Kong, but to also share their work with our hashtag #DiscoverHongKong. With UGC sourced from real visitors, it provided us with endless new organic material to attract other potential visitors to Hong Kong.

Links

Website URL