F1 : L’ISLANDE EN
PROFONDEUR
LUDOVIC DUBLANCHET
#DUBLANCHET/AGITATEURS
DADI GUDJONSSON
ICELAND

Inspired by Iceland
Marketing Iceland Tourism
Daði Guðjónsson - Manager for international consumer marketing - Promote Iceland

EYJAFJALLAJÖKULL

Government, City of Reykjavik,
Icelandair, Promote Iceland
and 80 tourism companies

2010
Objectives
Objectives focused on
using “people power“
to reverse the story
being told in the media
of Iceland as a
“disaster area“ when
only a small part of the
country was being
affected by the
ongoing eruption.
Business:
Reverse the decline in tourism numbers
Attitude:
Tackle the rumors head-on and affect
people’s perceptions
Behavioral:
Inspire people to tell positive stories about
Iceland

Would you recommend Iceland to a friend?

STAKEHOLDERS
&
STORYTELLERS

INTEGRATED
MARKETING
APPROACH

Objectives for Icelandic tourism
Decrease
seasonality
in every region
for Icelandic
tourism
Increase
commerce from
tourists
Increase
awareness of
Iceland as a
year-round
destination
1 2 3 4
Inspire
responsible travel
behavior and
maintain positive
visitor experience
Maintain positive
attitude towards
tourism in Iceland
5

We Say and Do
Things
Differently
2010 I Iceland Inspires
2011 I Iceland Invitations
2012 I Iceland by Another Name
2013 I Share the Secret
2014 I Secret Tour
2015 I Ask Gudmundur
2016 I Iceland Academy
2017 I Icelandic Pledge
2017 I A-Ö of Iceland
2018 I Team Iceland

WORKING WITH
STAKEHOLDERS
IN ICELAND
TOURISM
Division
& Team
Board
Meetings
Marketing
Meetings
Regional Marketing
Offices
Advisory
Boards
Information
Meetings
in all Regions
Joint Strategy
Meetings
Government
WEEK MONTH 3 MONTHS 6 MONTHS YEAR

HOW WE MAKE CAMPAIGNS WITH STAKEHOLDERS
Strategy meeting
with stakeholders
Creative idea Strategy and targets “Playbook” and
execution
Board meetings &
marketing meetings
Monitoring and
follow-up

How to inspire
visitors to travel
further?
- Ask Gudmundur

DECLINING GROWTH IN THE REGIONS
SOURCE: STATISTICS ICELAND
BEDNIGHT % GROWTH YOY IN THE REGIONS OF ICELAND
(2012-2014)
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
2012 2013 2014
Regions

CAPITAL GROWTH ECLIPSING THE REGIONS
BEDNIGHT GROWTH % YOY COMPARISON IN THE REGIONS VS.
CAPITAL AREA (2014)
-15%
-10%
-5%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
South & Southwest West & Westfjords North East
SOURCE: STATISTICS ICELAND

2015
THE HUMAN SEARCH ENGINE
When you want answers, you usually use a search engine.
But why ask a computer when you can ask a human?

MAIN GOALS: 1) AWARENESS 2) ENGAGEMENT 3) INSPIRE
ASK GUÐMUNDUR DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM
Use ‘hero’ videos on YouTube and
Facebook to create awareness
about the campaign and concept
and fuel users to engage
Hero content aims to fuel users
to ask Guðmundur questions
and learn more about Iceland
Guðmundur gives meaningful
and entertaining answers that
inspires people to visit Iceland
PLATFORMS:
SUPPORT:
HUBS:
41

ASK GUÐMUNDUR: RESULTS (SCOPE)
446M IMPRESSIONS DELIVERED THROUGH OUTREACH
52M UNIQUE REACH DELIVERED
1.2B ISK VALUE CREATED THROUGH OUTREACH
679 ARTICLES GENERATED
7M TOTAL VIDEO VIEWS

98.4% positive sentiment
ASK GUDMUNDUR

Gudmundur drives 38.6% uplift in consideration
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% 20%
Viewers
Non-Viewers
UPLIFT IN CONSIDERATION % FOR VIEWERS COMPARED TO NON-VIEWERS
+ 38.6%
ASK GUDMUNDUR
SOURCE: GOOGLE BRAND LIFT SURVEY

ASK GUDMUNDUR
INCREASE OF 164%
ON THE SEARCH
TERM “ICELAND”
400% AVERAGE INCREASE IN FOCUS
MARKETS ON BRAND, PRODUCT AND
CREATIVE TERMS.**

ASK GUÐMUNDUR: ÁRANGUR (VIÐBRÖGÐ)
Google
made a
case study!

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
2012 2013 2014 2015
2012
2013
2014
2015
+ 21% GREATER
THAN ESTIMATED
BEDNIGHT % GROWTH YOY IN THE REGIONS (2012-2015)
30% ACTUAL
ICELAND TOURISM 2015
2015: BEDNIGHT GROWTH DOUBLED IN THE REGIONS

-15%
-5%
5%
15%
25%
35%
45%
South & Southwest West & Westfjords North East
2014 Growth
2015 Growth
+ 408%+ 200% + 280%
HOTEL BEDNIGHT GROWTH % YOY COMPARISON IN THE REGIONS VS. CAPITAL AREA (2014-2015)
ICELAND TOURISM 2015
2015: ALL REGIONS TOURISM GROWTH INCREASED BY AT LEAST 200%.

The growing need for responsible tourism
- The world’s first tourism academy

2016

Culture
1. Grow quality tourism in culture.
Behaviour
2. Educate tourists to behave
responsibly in Iceland.
Commercial
3. Increase consideration of Iceland.
Objectives

“The best lessons
aren’t lessons.”
THE OPPORTUNITY

CONVENTIONAL
TOURISM MARKETING
APPROACH
AD-LED
ROLE
PROMOTE COUNTRY
LEAD MEDIA
PAID MEDIA
THE ICELAND
ACADEMY MODEL
APPROACH
ROLE
LEAD MEDIA
ENTERTAINMENT-LED
TEACH TOURISTS
PR&SOCIAL
OWNED & EARNED MEDIA
APPROACH

CONCEPT
In 2016, we formed a special team of
Icelandic tutors called ‘Iceland Academy’.
The aim is to help to enlighten tourists on
how they can experience the best food,
nature, culture, adventure, relaxation and
wellbeing that Iceland has to offer in a safe
and responsible way.

8 Icelanders who represent the diversity of
Icelandic culture and who have a passion to
share their knowledge with visitors.
We created a series of fun online videos that
teach tourists how to enjoy Iceland at its
best, to get the most from their visit, safely
and responsibly.
THE TUTORS
7

APPROACH
TEACH
TEST
TELL
#ICELANDACADEMY
Users get rewarded for “class attendance”
and engaging with Iceland Academy

A-Ö of Iceland, the Icelandic
equivalent of an A-Z guide,
which uses the 32 letters of
the Icelandic alphabet, ending
in ‘Ö’. The aim of the initiative
is to harness the uniqueness
of the Icelandic language to
highlight the diversity and
breadth of Iceland and to
encourage visitors to go
further and learn more.
The A to Ö of Iceland

Create engagement with
an over-targeted audience
Our target group “The Fun-loving Globetrotter” is one of the most over-targeted
audiences on the planet. They are constantly becoming more ad avoiding so
creating a promotional message that sparks interest is getting harder each year.
THE CHALLENGE

We’ve heard repeatedly from tourists
that the Icelandic language is
notoriously difficult to learn, so why not
use that challenge in a fun way - Let’s
get people to learn about the A - Ö of
Iceland by challenging them to take part
in the world’s hardest karaoke song, a
musical journey across the country.
The hardest Karaoke
song in the world
THE CREATIVE IDEA

PR, earned and owned media formed the
heart of the campaign driving momentum
with paid media being used to amplify our
most successful stories.
Our target group is called “The Fun-loving
Globetrotter” who lives in cities in UK,
Germany, France, Nordic countries and
North America. They are active travelers
who travel all year round, seek out new and
exciting destination, want to connect to the
local culture and are respectful of nature
and the environment.
Launch approach
A-Ö OF
ICELAND

Between October and December 2017
we released a variety of tailored
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
Instagram content to educate and
inspired our audience.
On Oct 9th 2017 we pushed “The
Hardest Karaoke film” out across all
owned channels announcing the new
campaign. We also introduced another
film showing a few tourists attempting
to sing the karaoke song and
encouraging others to have a go for
themselves.
Implementation

Results
Oct-Dec 2017

437 articles published in media
with 97M unique reach (pr+social)

“The nation’s Mother Tongue requires an oral dexterity few
outside the northern European island are blessed with... But
that hasn’t stopped the Icelandic tourist board from
encouraging visitors to learn a few choice words in a new
promotional music video”
- The Daily Telegraph (98M monthly unique users)
“Even if you’ve explored Snæfellsjökull,
you may struggle with the latest
challenge for tourists in Iceland!”
- Lonely planet (13M monthly unique users)
Iceland, the country known to many as home of “that
volcano whose name I can’t pronounce”, is pretty
good at playing to its quirks.
- The Guardian (125M monthly unique users)
Icelanders have a sense of
humor and they prove it
with this campaign
- Le Figaro – Madame
(58M monthly unique users: )

ROI
14 : 1
in earned media value (£8M)

“Aaaannd now it’s gonna be stuck in
my head forever.”
Jaco Van Der Walt
“I just learned more Icelandic in those 3
minutes than in a year and a half.”
Ryan Christopher Connolly
“I love this! Great way to learn the
pronunciation and language.
Awesome!!”
Lillian Morris
“Love this video! Can’t stop listening
to the song now.”
Nicolas Duclos
“Genius. Five hours later and I’m still
humming the tune.”
Tom Bullock
And the world
joined in!
In our first month we reached
over 13M people on our social
channels. Tweets and comments
across Twitter, Facebook and
YouTube were overwhelmingly
positive with people truly
engaging with the content and
responding in an emotional way.
We achieved over 70 thousand
engagements on our launch
content in the first three days of
the campaign.

8M COMBINED VIDEO
VIEWS (FACEBOOK, TWITTER & YOUTUBE – 71%
AVG VIEW DURATION)

170K SONG PLAYS ON
SPOTIFY

#SingIceland

Media social support
Conde Nast Traveller
created their own
video explaining the
karaoke song.
150k views
711 likes
337 comments
166 shares

Icelandic social support

Learnings

#1: The best lessons, aren’t
lessons

#2: Be personal

#3: Be responsible and authentic

#4: Have a long-term focus

#5: Collaborate with stakeholders

LAUNCH IN OCTOBER