Highlighting Great Campaigns
As I continue to use this blog to document past projects, I thought I’d include some posts featuring various campaigns that I find particularly successful, unique, or fun. The goal in highlighting these campaigns is to compile some standout examples that address specific needs and do so in noteworthy ways. To kick it off, I thought I’d feature a campaign from Iceland encouraging people to visit and unplug by “outhorsing” their email.
The Pain Point
Obviously the goal of Visit Iceland, the official travel bureau of the country, is to drive tourism to the country, and to that end the campaign was developed to uniquely highlight what makes Iceland a standout destination while also raising some of the modern concerns of todays traveller – especially in a post Covid-19 world where the push to remote and hybrid work has made it all-to-easy to just check your emails real quickly while on vacation – taking away from valuable time needed to unwind.
According to Newsweek, Visit Iceland completed a global study that revealed that “two-fifths (41 percent) of people globally check their work emails between one to four times a day while vacationing, and 1 in 10 (14 percent) view them between five to six times every day”. With such high numbers, the stage was set to address with potential visitors solutions to help them REALLY unplug while away.
The Project
The ad campaign was developed by Visit Iceland and partner agencies lended support in building a giant keyboard and providing the star talent to compose the emails needed for the campaign. Below is a great ‘making of’ video from Visit Iceland that shows how they went about the project.
The Results
OutHorse Your Email was a success in multiple ways. To start with, the travel numbers:
- 16.8% increase in travel intent in the US
- 391k tourists flew into Keflavík Airport Q2/2022 – busiest quarter since 2019
- 21k OutHorsed emails sent
The secondary impacts:
- 3.7 billion impressions
- $6.8 million in earned media
- 100% positive press sentiment
The Awards
With it’s unique approach, the campaign received many awards including:
- The One Show Gold Pencil Award 2023 – personalized digital
- D&AD Pencil Winners 2023 – Events & Digital and PR & Stunts
- Global SABRE Awards 2023 – top 40 PR campaigns
Overall the campaign ticked all the boxes – it addressed the pain point of driving tourism to Iceland while leveraging the information that was found in the independent study, that globally travelers are having a hard time disconnecting from their work emails, and addressed both in a standout campaign.