Search, PPC, Performance, Social, Turkey

City tourism marketing strategy idea - the second runner-up on Call4Istanbul competition

The digital advertising competition, Call4Istanbul was announced by the Turkish Foundation of Advertising for employees of digital agencies throughout Europe in cooperation with IAB Europe and Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture organization.

The brief was short, applicants were required to come up with an interactive campaign idea for ‘the young Europe”  target group. “It is up to the applicant whatever, whoever to choose. Yet a strong, coherent backbone strategy is a must and a number of creative applications are required.”

Our group, Gergely Nyikos designer and me came up with a strategy based on my experience of a colorful, vivid and big city showing a variety of faces to the tourists. Although I’ve been living in Istanbul for a few months I don’t think I can describe the city. So we chose the group of people who can do it the best instead of us.

The application could only contain 300 words of strategy, 300 words of communication ideas and 3 small artwork images. We have to carefully select each  and every words as the 300 words limit was very low. Also we had to play a bit with the emphases in the text as no text formatting was allowed.

I got approval for posting the strategy document only, so here you go:

Start a MOVEMENT: INSPIRE people to SHARE how they love Istanbul!

INSIGHT
- Travelers’ needs: Accommodation, food, sightseeing, shopping and souvenirs. False. They need something that TOUCHES them.
- Goals: See all museums and monuments. False. YOUNG EUROPEANS like to go beyond basic sightseeing. Visit places frequented by LOCALS. Find ‘HIDDEN’ treasures. MEET local people.
- Istanbul’s strengths: Istanbul is the city of all senses. Colourful. Vivid. Living. Multicultural. BIG. Friendly and helpful people. Neighborhoods have different “tastes”. TRUE.

Istanbul is too colorful to describe with few ads.

GOAL
Create desire: visit Istanbul!

STRATEGY
Add something personal and local. Show the many FACES of REAL city LIFE.
Website, rich content created in Istanbul. By young, Istanbul people: college, university students (and artists).
Content: LOT OF ‘amateur’ VIDEOS. 2 minute ‘clips’, multi-language. Personal VIDEO CLIPS created by the STUDENTS (who reacted to the CALL) in different LANGUAGES they learn.

TASK
Show something local you like and talk about it. (Favorite band, bar or restaurant. Shop or building or city panorama. Interview favourite actor, artist. Sporting, partying, shopping, anything would apply that you love.) All in your living neighborhood or near university (so all different neighborhoods be represented). Shoot a maximum 5” clip.

Clips selected, edited by a professional team to 2 minute (add music, logo, ending screen, tagging). Music and cut scenes come from ARTISTS volunteering in the program. ADVERTISING PLATFORM is created.
Clips uploaded: YouTube, website & seeded. COMMUNITY is created.

CALLING STUDENTS
Students from ALL universities apply via local university AMBASSADOR PROGRAM (similar: Nokia’s and Red Bull’s). Ambassadors: communications, lending semi-professional cameras, basic education on camera usage & clip making.

Students’ motivation:
- _Eager_ to do something for Istanbul, Turkey.
- International contacts. Students become local ‘scouts’, can be personally contacted.
- Competition, prizes.

In competition we also came up with a bonus idea:

To Istanbul visitors: VIDEO GUESTBOOK KIOSK on Istanbul airport.
Passengers leaving the country can tell a video saygoodbye to Istanbul in an automatic kiosk.
Funniest/craziest message wins the price of the flight ticket.
Videos automatically edited and uploaded to YouTube & website.
Flyers to hand out at the international departure entry doors about the kiosk.

And here’s the prize we won:

Please note that this document is just a part of the application. Together with the things described in the communication strategy document it would provide the city with a long term communication platform and sustained worldwide attention.

We were glad to participate in the competition, and all I can say the city tours and the final ceremony was awesome.