While 2020 was coming to an end, Tourisme Hautes-Laurentides was getting ready for its summer period as it prepared a solid advertising campaign with great fanfare. However, spring had other plans as Quebec was thrown into the worldwide pandemic of COVID-19. For this reason, Tourisme Hautes-Laurentides had to put all of its previously planned activities on hold.
Background
Because the state of the pandemic was changing constantly, Tourisme Hautes-Laurentides’ plans for the summer period as well as its spring promotional campaign were greatly disrupted. Going from partial confinement to total confinement, then closing all of the regions, Quebec sped up its process in order to contain COVID-19.
In the middle of this chaos and these setbacks, the opportunity arose for Tourisme Hautes-Laurentides to put forward an innovative way to fulfil Quebecers’ needs. In fact, an audit analysing social and traditional media coverage done in the end of March and in early April showed that mental health issues related to confinement started surfacing in conversations. It was evident that the Quebec population felt the need to escape.
Solution
In light of these emerging conversations, Capital-Image and ILOT, the brand management agency, worked hand in hand to elaborate an idea that would maximize the elements developed in the cancelled spring campaign in order to demonstrate a burst of intelligence, positivity and relevance during this time of crisis. Since Quebecers were not allowed to go to other regions, those regions needed to come to Quebecers!
As the first discussion started on April 3rd 2021, it only took six days (four business days) for Capital-Image’s extended team, ILOT and content:content to create a SlowTV type video, as well as develop a media relations strategy and all of the related content.
We reached out to different media outlets covering all types of content such as traveling, tourism, lifestyle, technology/social media and general subjects in order to generate coverage around Hautes-Laurentides’ campaign and to generate viewings for this unique experience.
Results
The campaign was a total hit, allowing to generate more than 6.8 million media impressions from Salut Bonjour, La Presse, Journal de Montréal, Nomad Junkies, Géo Plein Air, 107.3 Rouge FM and more.
Every media mention had a direct measurable impact on traffic towards Tourisme Hautes-Laurentides’ web site and the viewing of the video. These mentions generated three times more clicks than the average industry for a similar campaign and a CPC (cost per click) five times cheaper than the industry average. In addition, according to activity reports from the summer period, the Hautes-Laurentides region experienced an increase in public presence in its different establishments and tourist sites.