This is the story about the ‘Mystery Man’ campaign we ran on behalf of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau last week. It’s a story of the power of social media, passionate communities and bringing people together. We knew it was a great idea but the results exceeded our wildest imagination.
Background
Social Media is about sharing and bringing people together. When the Dallas CVB asked us to design a campaign around Super Bowl XLV we thought ‘Why not use social media to get people talking to each other about Dallas?’.
At Think! Social Media, we work with the concept of passionate communities. These are groups of people connected through a shared passion. Engage a passionate community in the right way by offering something remarkable, and they will do the marketing for you through word-of-mouth.
The Big Idea
Needless to say, every NFL team has an extremely passionate community… and offering a chance to win Super Bowl tickets is pretty remarkable. Remarkable enough get people out into the street talking to each other.
We decided to send a Mystery Man to each city of the teams who made it to the Super Bowl. The first person to find the Mystery Man and tell him the secret phrase, ‘Have you been to Dallas lately?’ would instantly win tickets to the big game, 4 nights accommodation, tickets to the NFL experience and some cash towards travel.
The Process
We researched NFL and travel/lifestyle bloggers in each city and asked them if they would like to participate. As “Exclusive Bloggers”, their role would be to share daily clues about the location of the Mystery Man. We were careful in choosing bloggers that have strong social media presences and very engaged readers. We chose 5 in Green Bay and 4 in Pittsburgh. Their role was crucial in tapping into the existing communities and raising awareness about the campaign.
The clues tied in to imagery and facts about attractions in Dallas and became increasingly specific as the weekend went on. By printing the clues on photos they were easy to share through Twitter, and were eye-catching on the blogs and Facebook.
The secret password could only be revealed by ‘liking’ the Visit Dallas Facebook Fan Page. A campaign Twitter account (@DallasSBHunt) was created to coordinate all activities, answer questions and share the latest updates. In addition two hashtags (#SBHuntGB and #SBHuntPGH) were introduced to facilitate discussion around the contest.
Results
Sunday
The conference finals were played on Sunday January 23. We were prepared for each of the 4 cities. At the end of Sunday we knew the contest would run in Green Bay and Pittsburgh.
Monday
We finalized the details of the contest and sent out materials to the bloggers so they could prepare their first blog posts announcing the contest. At this time we activated the contest tab on the Visit Dallas fan page which only had 600 fans.
Tuesday
By noon, the bloggers in each city had announced the contest.
Green Bay: Total Packers, Brent Farvre, Packers Club, Purple Pants Green Jersey, All Green Bay Packers
Pittsburgh: IheartPGH, Steelers Gab, Pittsburgh Sports and Mini Ponies
Slowly the word started to spread. At the end of Tuesday, the fanpage had grown to over 1,000 fans and the followers of the campaign Twitter account began to grow.
Wednesday/Thursday
We continued to build awareness over the next few days. By carefully listening in on Twitter, tapping in to relevant communites and joining the conversations where appropriate we were able to rapidly spread word of the contest. By Thursday, traditional media had gotten wind of what we were up to and a few stations began to report on the contest on the the nightly news. By the end of Thursday over 3000 people had liked the Visit Dallas page.
Friday
At 9am the Exclusive Bloggers announced their first clues and the contest began. We quickly learned that we had struck gold in both cities. The streets were full of people searching for our Mystery Man, many tweeting as they went and following along on Facebook. By Friday @DallasSBHunt was trending in both Pittsburgh and Green Bay.
Best of all, two whole cities were out on the streets talking to each other about Dallas.
That night, the hunt for the Dallas Mystery Man was the headline news on all the local stations (this is my favourite). The Visit Dallas Fan Page had grown to 8,000 fans and the campaign Twitter account had well over 1500 followers.
Saturday
We were lucky that Friday’s clues had been vague enough for our Mystery Men to keep from getting caught, but by Saturday the amount of people on the street made it significantly more difficult to make it through the city unnoticed.
Just after noon our Mystery Man in Green Bay was found and not long after our man in Pittsburgh was caught as well.
The hunt was over, but the ride wasn’t. The winners were invited on news shows (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and countless blogs, websites, radio stations and news papers were reporting on the contest and its winners.
Sunday and beyond
The winners in Green Bay turned out to be a couple who are homeless and live in a local shelter. They were invited on Fox 11’s morning show to tell their story. Shortly thereafter CNN picked up the story and we had reports from our contacts all over North America (even as far as Australia) who saw the campaign on the news.
The Results
We definitely succeeded in getting people talking about Dallas. We also proved that when you run a Social Media campaign within passionate communities, you don’t need a big media budget. And, if the community is passionate enough, you’ll even make it on the news.
We grew the Visit Dallas Fan Page by almost 10,000 fans in three days. The fanpage received about 100,000 pageviews and generated over 500,000 news feed impressions.
But what we’re most proud of is the incredible positive reaction from the people in Green Bay and Pittsburgh. We received many messages from individuals telling Dallas how much they enjoyed the weekend.
We want to thank the Dallas CVB for giving us the opportunity to execute our crazy idea and give a big thank you to all the local bloggers and the great people of Green Bay and Pittsburgh. May the best team win on Sunday!
This entry is cross-posted on the Think! Social Media blog.
Interesting list of things to watch in 2011 from JWT. Many trends relate to travel, tourism and hospitality. Here’s my highlights to pay attention to and why.
People might be sceptical about Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Places. But checkin-in services aren’t going away and services will become more intelligent, more meaningful and more relevant to people as innovators finds the sweet spot. And it’s a natural for travel and tourism.
Microbreweries have been hot in BC for a while and new restaurants and pubs offer selections of beers from around the world. This niche is turning mainstream and offering a great selection of beers might just be a great differentiator for your restaurant or pub.
Most DMO’s are still producing paper guides (don’t get me started). Many offer the option to download an electronic version to reduce production and shipping costs while minimizing environmental impact. Most DMO’s create an exact (PDF-like) copy of the paper version. But that’s missing the point. Offering an electronic format requires re-thinking the existing model for this kind of content delivery.
People are more socially and environmentally aware and the choices they make as consumers are starting to reflect this more and more. Brands are clueing in. Pepsi’s refresh project is a great example. The travel and tourism industry needs to become a lot more mindful of this. Voluntourism is one way of doing this. Tribes wanted is a good example and so is Abraham’s Path.
The next economic driver might very well be the green economy as innovators across the world are looking for solutions to global warming. People’s expectations for products and services will change. If not careful, traveling could become a frowned upon activity because of its environmental impact. It doesn’t have to be this way though but the travel and tourism industry needs to take this trend seriously. It takes leadership. Resort town Whistler for example is leading the local industry in realizing their sustainability vision.
Food is a very important part of a tourism experience. People talk about the weather, the food and how friendly the people were when they come home. A celebrity chef restaurant can be a reason to visit a destination.
This is the stuff I have nightmares about but some people’s definition of ‘getting away from it all’ is to disconnected all devices. As a tourism operator, you need to find your niche and this could very well be yours.
Another example of finding your niche.
As the internet and social network allow people to connect with people in passionate communities, they want to meet in person. The opportunity lies tourism and hospitality businesses is to find relevant communities and offer them the chance to connect in person, from foursquare swarm badge parties to geek cruises.
Needs no explanation.
There are a multitude of people traveling the globe and broadcasting their adventures to their communities. This is the new travel media. I remember suggesting inviting “Where the hell is Matt” to create a video in every community in BC. Never happened unfortunately and I still can’t believe no DMO ever has.
One of the break-through trends of 2010 and a hot topic during DMAI even though it’s old news in Japan. A QR code is in essence nothing more than an easy way to direct a user to a URL/app. But directing people to information is just the beginning. We need more imagination, like these Buddhist munks, Adidas or CASA.
This one is a bit more abstract. It can refer to physical objects as the center of a social interaction. A hotel review on Tripadvisor for example. It can also used as a virtual object used socially in an online environment. Sending someone a virtual gift on Facebook for example. It’s easy to do and the thought that matters, and that’s why they work. <plug>By the way, Think! licences a Facebook gift app for DMO’s and tourism businesses</plug>.
Will there be a galaxy DMO?
Tourism is all about stories. Tourism operators don’t sell a product, they sell a story, a memory. And a story needs a plot, a beginning, a middle and an end. You can design the story and the process is called service design. Companies like Disney go as far as creating a detailed backstory for everything in their themeparks, creating the perfect story for a guest to join in. What’s the story your guests joins?
Listening to your users? Absolutely. But giving a sh*t about your users is way better. –Gary Vaynerchuk (Web 2.0 Expo, 2008)
A couple of weeks ago, I cancelled a flight from Innsbruck to Vienna with Austrian Airlines. It was a connecting flight to Amsterdam. Because I took the train to Vienna a couple days earlier to meet up with my friends Martin and Olaf, I didn’t need the flight to Vienna anymore but I still needed my flight from Vienna to Amsterdam.
Austrian Airlines charged me $250 to cancel the first leg and keep everything else the same.
They were legally in their right but it goes against all common sense. Charge me a $25 or $50 admin fee? Sure. It took 10 minutes over the phone to make the change. Instead they charged me the maximum penalty. Because they could.
The person on the phone was very understanding. So was the person in the customer service department I emailed to complain. But the standard form letter was clear.
Please note that the change fee forms part of the existing air tariff as filed with the Department of Transportation. In the case of special fares once transportation has commenced, the change fee may not be waived especially when a situation arises that is beyond our control. […]
We trust that your flights with Austrian Airlines were otherwise pleasant, and it will be our pleasure to welcome you soon again on board.
Austrian Airlines listens. But they don’t give a shit. That’s not a winning business model.
When we were on vacation in Ireland a few years ago we went to kiss the Blarney Stone of course. When I was trying to find out what the stone is about, why people kiss it and when it all started it turned out there are all kinds of legends but no real definitive answer. The only reason why people kiss the stone seems to be because everybody else does it.
We also went to this festival called Puck Fair, where a little town parties for a whole weekend. They catch a wild goat (the puck), get it crowned as king by a young girl and hoist it on top of the main stage for the duration of the event. Why? Nobody is really sure. But the town is packed.
In Rome, people throw about 3000 euros a day in the Trevi fountain. In Prague, people rub the Statue of St John Nepomuk.
People are social and people want to be part of a story. For a tourism business or DMO, traditions can be remarkable experiences that put people in the story of your destination. People will go out their way not to miss them.
What traditions and folklore does your destination have people can be part of?
It doesn’t have to be steeped in history either. It can be as simple as nailing a pair of shoes to a tree. Next thing you know it’s a tradition, everybody is doing it and you have a tourist attraction like in Prince Rupert, BC.
My passion is to bring innovative marketing to the tourism industry so that travelers are happy and operators benefit.
The world has changed. Social media, online marketing and technology continues to disrupt traditional marketing methods and success will be defined by understanding new emerging principles, creating sound strategies with a nimble execution of tactics.
We need to bring 21st century marketing to the tourism industry. From the smallest operator to the largest DMO. I love sharing what I know and also learn from others. I want to do more of it.
So after 11 great years at Tourism British Columbia I’ve decided it is time for a change. Effective November 12, I will be joining the team at Think! Social Media. Rodney and Ben have built an impressive team of brilliant people who bring smart marketing to an exciting and growing list of clients in the travel and tourism industry.
Think! has a different approach. We live the principles of social media. The result is some impressive work and strong client relationships. Clients are now asking to build out the services beyond social media. We will do this while staying true to our values.
I’m sad to leave the organization who have given me so many great opportunities and especially the incredibly talented people I work with every day, around the world. People at Tourism BC, but also at our partners. I’m going to miss them a lot. But in a networked world, we’re only one tweet or status update away.
I still get questions from tourism businesses who aren’t sure if and how they should engage in social media. The answer is that you already are part of social media.
So the question is “to ignore” or “to engage”. Answer these questions:
How is social media any different?
A few years ago I drove 5 hours from Vancouver to Portland with my buddies Abdulla and Fred…
…to eat these 5 cheeseballs at Salvador Molly’s.
I hear you ask…. WHY?
Because they’re habanero cheese balls. And they’re called Great Balls Of Fire. And they’re insanely spicy. And if you finish all 5, including the habanero sauce, they’ll put your picture on the wall.
That’s remarkable enough for me to sit in a car for 5 hours.
What’s the remarkable thing your business or destination has that’s worth driving 5 hours for?
Somebody emailed me this webcast where Justin Reid from VisitBritain shares their social media strategy, examples, results and learning. Very insightful. Here are my key take-aways.
People don’t make a travel decision on a national tourism board website
Justin said: “Our research told us that the majority of long haul travelers visit a national tourist board after they’ve already made the decision to visit”
VisitBritain’s rightly concluded that in order to target people in the decision making process, they need to engage in other places like third party websites. A content partnership with Yahoo is working very well for them for example.
The future of CRM/eMail Marketing is under threat
Justin said: “Where previously you might have focused a lot of CRM activity we learned that the inbox is no longer a happy place. People want to clear it out as fast as possible. So we now want to focus on finding places where people are in the mindset of making decisions about travel [social media].”
I wondered about the same thing about a year ago in this blog post. As people become overwhelmed with email, they pay less attention to marketing messages, even when they opt-in. This kind of change won’t happen overnight but social media is an environment where people are easier to engage, two-way dialogue is possible and content is easy to share.
Social Media’s network effect has incredible reach
Justin: “10,000 followers is amazing. But we followed the traffic of some of our tweets and each of our tweets reaches a potential audience of about 325,000 people”
Through re-tweets on Twitter, and by tagging and sharing on Facebook, a message can travel far and wide in a very short period of time. And the content itself is much more credible because it’s endorsed by a friend who shared it.
Tourism Australia’s fanpage with over 600,000 fans is a good example. Every message they posts could be read by that many people. And for every person that comments on the post, the post gets published to their friend network, extending reach with the potential to organically grow their fanbase.
And as a side-effect, “Facebook is now the third largest referrer to VisitBritain after Google and Yahoo, and we’re not even seeking to push people to the website.”
Content is far more important than a website
Justin: “Our website is not the most important marketing tool for us, our content is. We’re just as happy if somebody reads our content on Yahoo as on our website.”
VisitBritain is agnostic about where content is being consumed and as a result, more of VisitBritains content is being consumed on third party websites. A partnership with Yahoo produces an exponential amount of views, for free. More videos are viewed than some market websites receive visitors.
Producing or gathering the right content, and pushing it out into place where you add value for the publisher and the consumer, preferably with easy sharing opportunities is much more effective than trying to generate website visitation through advertising alone.
User Generated Content is an easy and cost-effective way to publish content
Justin: “95% of VisitBritain’s photography comes from user generated content” and “when somebody’s photo appears on a national tourism boards site, you can bet on it they will send a link to all their friends to check it out.”
VisitBritain set-up a Flickr group called Love UK and is using it as one of the sources for its photos on VisitBritain.com. And because most people are happy to see their photography used, they will tell everybody about it.. on social media.
Brilliant. This is something I’ve advocated for years but I could never get it going. Well done VisitBritain.
Thanks for sharing Justin!
Today Facebook launched Facebook Questions, “a beta product that lets you pose questions like these to the Facebook community. With this new feature, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.”
The new feature is slowly being rolled out. It’s extremely buggy for me at the moment. Searching for questions about specific topics or keywords doesn’t work at all for example.
But the concept is becoming clear.
Facebook is making clever use of the social graph (friend networks) and user profiles. Questions asked by my friends and topics I’ve have listed as interests where listed first for me. You can also send a question to a friend. Inside Facebook as more details about the product and how the social graph is used.
What’s great for fanpage owners is that you ask and answer questions as the fanpage.
For DMO’s and travel operators, monitoring questions and answering them can be a powerful way to built relationships with potential customers. Besides it’s incredible userbase, its use of the social graph and ability for fanpages to participate makes it a great tool for engagement.
Today I presented our social media strategy for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games at the PNWER conference in Calgary. One of the things that goes through my mind while I’m presenting these days is “what are people in the audience tweeting about this presentation RIGHT NOW?” Today was different. I could see exactly what was going on.
At the start of my presentation I asked @seattlemaven (who runs Seattle’s Twitter account and was invited to speak but couldn’t be there in person) and the Twitterverse in general a few questions about social media via Twitter. I set-up Tweetdeck notifications and throughout the presentation, answers and comments popped-up on the screen.
The result was organized chaos, but I think it told an interesting story about the power and immediacy of social media. Either way, I had a lot of fun and great feedback from the audience.
Here are the questions I asked and the answers that came by during my presentation.
@seattlemaven When did you start, how many interactions do you have a day on average, and how much time does it take you?
@seattlemaven How are you different from a phone or in-person interaction with a consumer?
@seattlemaven What’s the best new hot bar in Seattle for a bachelorette party? (audience question)
Tweeps, join me live at a conference. 1) Why should businesses care about social media? #PNWER
2) What’s your #1 piece of advice when starting in social media? #PNWER