Public relations are an art. An art I have been a fan of for a while. But good PR takes a lot of creative work and thinking outside the box. A year ago one of the most brilliant campaigns ever was launched titled “the best job in the world”. This is what the advertising agency Sapient Nitro had to say about the campaign:
“Tourism Queensland asked us to launch a new brand, the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef to Global Experience Seekers across eight key international markets. We drove people to an engaging website, initially through online recruitment listings and display ads. We gathered user-generated content and supported the interactive campaign with a presence on social networking sites.”
Let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want the best job in the world? The job description basically stated that you would be having lots of fun and doing all sorts of activity for 6 months, living in a dream house and all you had to do was clean your pool, feed fishes and have a weekly blog. Understandably this started spreading all over the social media and in the end most of the major media in almost every country in the world covered it! I even thought about applying, but I didn’t have a video camera. But I must say, I looked at few of the videos and the guy who won isn’t as charismatic I would have thought. Somebody might lose their job! check out his website here.
Now the Canary Islands are launching a campaign. Basically 100 Canarian residents between 18 and 35 were chosen to represent the islands as ambassadors. The reason I am writing about this is because these ambassadors are in Iceland at the moment and are basically going up and down our main street and handing out flyers to annoyed pedestrians, inviting them to an interview, and a party that was yesterday, that might get them a free trip to the islands. Online ads have been running for almost a week and everybody is aware of the visit. I hope these “ambassadors” will get to enjoy our country this weekend, because the last few days they haven’t been up to much. I like the gesture that they are giving away a free trip to the Canary Islands, but I think there might be a more refined way to use the ambassadors.
In their defense their target group is young people, but bear in mind that the current visitors of the Canary Islands are the older than 50 (at least in Iceland). And if they plan to change the islands in to an oasis for drunken Europeans their key demographic might evacuate the islands. But on the positive side, every media, web, television, radio etc. have covered the visit. So if the campaign fails, they can always think of the fact that at least they are raising brand awareness.
great writeup. i was wondering who these people were walking all around handing out stuff.
Just so you know… these ambassadors arent just wisiting Iceland.
Iceland is just the first stop in a 15 country tour.
And just as you pointed out the current visitors in their islands are seniors and that is what they are trying to change.
I just wanted you to know two things. I am from Canary Islands and I agree with you. Those “ambassadors” doesn’t describe at all how we are. They have been sent there for some reason we can’t understand (maybe some day) Spending our money in a so bad campaign. We have had visitors from many countries in the last 50 years and we all who have jobs relationed with turism have always tried to give them the best treatment and have tried them to leave with the best memories from the Islands. Many of us think that it’s a waste of public money and nothing else and feel ashamed of this campaign and these ambassadors. In many cases, politicians do not represent the people. So this is one of those cases. I look forward to visiting Iceland, but i won’t wear an orange jacket.
Kind regards, Elisa
I have lots of friends and acquaintances that visit the Canary Islands regularly, and from what I heard it is a great place to have a nice vacation and relax!
Elisa, when you come to Iceland we will of course welcome you with open arms
Thanks for the comments,
Agnar
Hi Agnar!
I am one of the 100 ambassadors who went to Iceland two weeks ago.
It was some problems with the organization of the activity like for example the flyer issue, I don’t think was the best way to spread the word in a city like Reykjavik, maybe for a bigger city like London and Paris but not for Iceland.
But you can’t blame the 100 people we were “working” there and trusting our gov in this idea.
Another fail was the party, I dont understand I think instead of did the promotion online the staff could give let say 5 invitations for each of us to the party.
It could be done better but we did the best we can.
Agnar – As editor of the Europe a la Carte Blog I was in Iceland to report on the Mission Iceland stage of the No Winter Blues campaign.. I didn’t encounter any annoyed pedestrians in the streets of Reykjavik on the afternoon of 20 October. as the Canarian Ambassadors handed out their messages in bottles. All the Icelanders I observed and spoke to were very good natured and curious about the campaign. Agnar were you on the streets to see for yourself? Also what do you mean by the Canarian Ambassadors “not being up to much”? All the Ambassadors I spoke to were very focused,, enthusiastic and passionate about promoting their homeland.
Lisa – Why are you ashamed of the campaign and the ambassadors? The Canaries has to fight for its market share of the tourist market in competition with other European Winter Sun destinations such as Madeira and Cyprus.
My name is Andrés and I was working as Ambassador in Iceland.
Thanks for your comments Karen, you have reconized the Canarian feelling.
Angar, I would ask you were did you see us, the Ambassador inviting pedestrians ??
Be responsable of your information, please !!
Nothing is perfect, and even the first time, We did it as good as we can, but I´m not agree with your article, because many, many Icelanders are thinking very diferent from you and all of them are agree that we gave smiles and positive Canarian Feelling there .
Check it:
http://pressan.is/Frettir/Lesafrett/thessir-islendingar-keppast-um-okeypis-ferdir-til-kanarieyja
I appreciate you taking the time to comment. I both live and work in downtown Reykjavik, so I saw the ambassadors every day. I even talked to them on two separate occasions. But I didn’t attend the party. The people I talked to were polite and had a good attitude. But they spent the entire time on the same street handing out flyers and bottles to people. You don’t need 100 people to do that! My colleagues and I agreed that the ambassadors weren’t being utilized to their full potential and after passing them a few times it got a bit annoying. Maybe before coming here, it might have been a good idea to hire an Icelandic PR firm to help with the execution.
So to sum up, the idea was good but it was poorly executed. But luckily Iceland was the first destination of many, so there is still time to improve.