As part of a novel marketing initiative, with an intent to create conversations on social media, Team Marketing launched a viral campaign in the first week of April 2017, comprising of 2 videos with a boy and girl respectively from the North-East, whose faces had been turned upside down. The camera pulls then out and we hear a voice-over, as the visual turns to normal. The films end with the line – ‘Turn what you know around’ and then introduces a travel package from Thomas Cook India. With a really catchy and thought provoking simple script, the campaign addresses the on-going issue that many Indian travellers face – misconceptions about the North-East being an unsafe area for tourists to go and visit.
We welcomed the challenge to remove the myths about the North-Eastern state being a Maoist region. Our intention behind the 2 advertisements was to break mental barriers and generate genuine interest in the minds of our customers to look at the North-Eastern region as a beautiful destination worth exploring; also removing the hostility and unfamiliarity around the destination. We were keen to address the issue as a travel company and explore the task of introducing the North-East in such a way that it would generate genuine interest in the hearts and minds of Indian travellers.
Given the present travel market, it is time people took notice and showed an inclination to travel to destinations with a strong cultural heritage. Our endeavour was focussed on conceptualizing a project that could give out key messages to audiences, inspiring them to re-consider their long-held notions or cultural stereotypes about this region. Our team’s efforts paid off and we witnessed a positive response from potential consumers. We used social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and You Tube to get our message out there, and also sent out a digital press release to several media publications/portals.
Apart from garnering coverage in publications like Business World, Outlook Business, Mint & Exchange4media, our campaign was trending on Twitter and saw a very positive response across social media channels like You Tube and Facebook. The 2 films garnered a total of 6 Lakh views on You Tube alone and close to 15 Lakh views on our Facebook page. We were also trending on Twitter for 2 days in a row with hashtags #Traveltoknow & #Traveltonorth-east. Our campaign garnered a total of 4,330 mentions on Twitter as well. We were elated to see our efforts paying off and the results speak for themselves.
For more information, be sure to like and follow Thomas Cook India on Facebook, Twitter & You Tube.
Do click on the links below, scroll down and see the poignant message in our special North East India Video.
https://www.facebook.com/ThomasCookIndiaLimited
https://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasCookIndiaLtd
https://twitter.com/thomascookindia
—Avinash Janjire–
Vice President – Marketing
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