1. Using people power to save a country
Matt Springate & George Bryant
APG AWARDS 2011 The Brooklyn Brothers
2. SUMMARY
On a seemingly ordinary weekday evening back in April 2010, the Eyjafjallajökulll volcano unexpectedly erupted.
Black ash clouds spread across the skies of Europe and world air travel came to a standstill.
Tourism numbers to Iceland plummeted ahead of the all important summer season. If left unchecked,
this would mean another disaster for the already embattled country.
This paper is about how planning began the fight back by creating a new type of tourism campaign that used
people power rather than a traditional communications approach to rapidly change the perceptions of tourists
globally and increase tourism to the small country by 27% in just 6 months, worth over £138.7 million to the
Icelandic economy.
3. THE SCALE OF TASK
TAKING ON A VOLCANO
The country of Iceland had transformed itself from one of Europe’s poorest
countries to one of its wealthiest in the space of a generation. But fast-forward
to September 2008 and the country emerged as the biggest casualty of the
global financial crisis and its future looked bleak.
Then, on the 14th April 2010, another killer blow was dealt to the country’s
people and its economy. The dormant volcanic glacier, Eyjafjallajökulll,
unexpectedly erupted and sent plumes of ash into the Icelandic air. Black ash
clouds engulfed the skies and world air travel was thrown into turmoil.
A CYCLE OF NEGATIVITY
As the cloud spread, so did the negative publicity and Iceland was on the verge
of a very real disaster. Stories from trusted global news sources like the BBC
spread online and National Geographic issued a health warning, prompting
people to think that Iceland was a dangerous place to visit. A climate of negative
stories and sentiment around Iceland was increasingly turning potential tourists
off and creating a cycle of negativity around the under siege country.
4. THE BRIEF
SAVE A COUNTRY
The effect of the volcano was felt immediately with tourism numbers plummeting 30% in the two remaining
weeks of April, a decline that continued on into the start of May. The Icelandic Government had to re-set their
forecasts for the year based on a 22% decline in visitor numbers from May-September (the busiest months
of the year, accounting for 55% of all tourists).
TURN THE TIDE
Due to the scale, and urgent nature of the challenge it was critical to have an immediate response.
Thousands of jobs and livelihoods were under threat. The Government of Iceland partnered with
the City of Reykjavik, Icelandair, Iceland Express, Promote Iceland and another 80 tourism companies
banded together and approached us to rebuild and drive a rapid and sustained increase in bookings
across the leading 15 markets including UK, US, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and France. After the
briefing, three things became very clear. If we were going to help Iceland fight back we had to:
1.) Be smart with the money: £2 million is a small budget for a multi-market campaign.
2.) Change behaviour not just attitudes: It wasn’t going to be enough to change people’s perceptions;
we had to inspire them to act and book trips to Iceland.
3.) Act quickly: We didn’t have the luxury of time to create a ‘slow-burn’ campaign.
5. RETHINKING THE BRIEF
If we were going to rapidly reverse the decline of tourism numbers we needed
a radical approach.
When we looked at traditional travel communications for inspiration, we were
uninspired.
The convention for travel advertising is to create a glossy, broadcast campaign
often featuring celebrities or iconic places. Post the volcano, we knew this
approach wouldn’t work; it would be too slow burn and not tackle people’s
perceptions head-on. Also, in our post recession world, where mistrust in
institutions is at an all time high who would believe a traditional tourism
campaign from an embattled country’s government? A conventional broadcast-
led tourist campaign was at risk of feeling like propaganda. The conventions of travel communications
6. FROM ACQUISITION TO PARTICIPATION
But then while looking at the market data, we discovered a fact: 80% of people who
have visited Iceland share their stories and recommend it to friends and
colleagues 1 . And It was this insight – that people are inspired by a visit to Iceland
and come back with stories they want to tell – that led us to rethink the brief.
Rather than try and acquire tourists (the well-worn approach of traditional travel
campaigns), why not get these fans of Iceland to tell our story? We could use these
fans as our media and create a campaign aimed at getting people to share their
stories. This approach had a dual benefit; firstly, we could use these people as our
media to help spread the positive message that Iceland was open for business,
and secondly, stories from real people would be more credible than a government
campaign broadcast through traditional media.
1 Source: OMD Quantitative Study, 2006
7. PEOPLE AS MEDIA
Reframing the brief from the acquisition of tourists to inspiring fan participation
unlocked a new model for the category. Our next challenge was to think about
how to engage fans of Iceland and get them to share their stories with the world.
We had to think of a smart way to recruit them and build momentum behind
the idea so we started to explore recent thinking around movements and
social participation.
We found that a key principle of social media thinking suggests that movements
are created by a small number of influencers. However, we simply didn’t have
the time to recruit influencers and get them to spread the message. We needed
a faster approach that would get a mass of people involved quickly.
So instead of starting with a strategy of influence, we started with the opposite, and
we built a strategy around unity.
We knew that if this idea was going to change people’s behaviour and get
tourists visiting the country again we had to re-think social participation
and give thousands of people (not just the few) a voice and unite a mass of
people behind a common purpose.
Flipping the traditional travel comms model
8. THE IDEA
INSPIRED BY ICELAND
‘Inspired by Iceland’ was the idea we created to harness the power of people as media.
Rather than target tourists, we wanted to stimulate Icelanders to share their inspiring stories with the world.
We wanted to turn the cycle of negativity on its head and use Iceland’s greatest resource (its people) to create
a virtual social movement of our own. Our idea was to get Icelanders to kick-start the campaign and inspire
Icelandic fans from other countries to tell their stories to the world.
The shift from a cycle of negativity to a new model of social participation
9. INSPIRED BY ICELAND
HOW WE STARTED A MOVEMENT
In a world first on the 3rd June 2010 we launched the ‘Inspied by Iceland’ campaign by stopping the entire
country for an hour and getting Icelanders to go online to share their stories with the world.
‘Iceland Hour’ was launched by the President of Iceland in a live address on TV and simulcast online to the
world. During the hour we gave the people of Iceland social tools to spread their ‘Inspired Stories’ with
their network of friends, family and colleagues overseas.
Schools stopped. Businesses stopped. And by the end of the first day 1.5 million stories had been shared
with the world.
10. INSPIRED BY ICELAND
FANNING THE FLAMES
We used social media to create an army of fans that spread news and positive messages across Facebook, Twitter
and Vimeo. Friends of Iceland (including Bjork and Yoko Ono) were filmed and their stories posted
on the ‘Inspired by Iceland’ website.
We set up live webcams across the country – everywhere from the volcano to the Blue Lagoon – where people
could see that the country wasn’t covered in ash. During the first month of the campaign the cameras were
viewed on average 4233 times per second. And between June and August they were viewed 60 million2 times.
In cities across the world we created innovative ‘real-time posters’ with feeds from the webcams, which gave
over 60 million commuters3 a pleasant antidote to their daily grind and provided further evidence that Iceland
was open for business.
2 Source: Kakl Analytics, June – August 2010
3 Source: OMD, Quantitative Study, June - September 2010
11. ICELAND HOUR
The President of Iceland launching ‘Iceland Hour’
PR coverage from ‘Iceland Hour’
12. ‘INSPIRED BY ICELAND’ WEBSITE
The home of ‘Inspired by Iceland’
‘Inspired by Iceland’ website where people can share their personal stories
16. RESULTS
To be honest, even we were amazed at the response.
Over the period of the campaign, we had 22.5 million stories created by fans
of Iceland across the world4.
Beyond the stories, we saw a massive shift in perceptions towards the
country, tracking showed that in the UK people were 39% more positive
towards Iceland, whilst the Germans were 33% and the Danish 23% more
likely to travel to Iceland in the future5 and positive online sentiment towards
Iceland grew to 89%6.
In the 6 months from the start of the campaign tourist numbers were up 27%
above forecast, adding a vital £138.7m to the Icelandic economy, on a spend
of just over £2m.
And ‘inspired by Iceland’ has sustained momentum beyond the end of the
active campaign period as Q1 2011 has proven to be Iceland’s highest first
quarter ever.
4 Source: Agency Analytics and Measurement, May – September 2010
5 Source: Market and Media Research Ltd. Quantitative: Online Omnibus – August 2010
6 Source: Brandwatch, based on analysis of 100 random posts May to September 2010
17. LESSONS FROM STARTING A MOVEMENT
BE PEOPLE POWERED
‘Inspired by Iceland’ proves that a people powered strategy can create an unfair advantage.
We tapped into people’s passion for Iceland and encouraged them to tell their stories to the world,
and because it came from them (and not the government) it rapidly drove reappraisal of the country
and inspired people to visit again.
Planning’s contribution was to change the nature of the brief and challenge the conventions of the category,
from creating communications that drive acquisition of tourists to creating communications that inspire
fan participation.
This paper shows that starting from a model of unity rather than influence can create a new level
of social participation that gives thousands of people a voice and can unite a mass movement behind
a common purpose.
Word Count: 1480
18. CREATIVE BRIEF
THE PROBLEM Iceland is a country under siege.
In the wake of the volcano that bought Europe to standstill, tourist numbers have plummeted 30%. If this continues
there will be huge consequences. Over 60% of people in Iceland (a country of only 318,000) are connected to tourism
and the continued decline will result in huge job losses and lead the nation to another disaster.
THE ROLE FOR COMMUNICATIONS Iceland is suffering from a massive ‘misinformation’ problem as negative new
stories are building momentum online. Recent tracking studies show that travel intent has plummeted across all
key markets.
Therefore the rumours – that Iceland is dangerous and not safe to visit – need to be tackled head-on.
We need to Make The Truth Heard.
We have to show the world that Iceland is a safe place to visit and that the country is open for business and more
alive than ever before.
WHO VISITS ICELAND? People who visit Iceland are seasoned travelers who are worldly and open-minded. A trip
to Reykjavik is seen as an alternative to a weekend break in Paris or Berlin. They want their holiday to be full of
inspiring moments and we know that over 80% of people who have visited Iceland would recommend it to friends,
family and colleagues.
WHAT WE NEED TO DO We need to get fans of Iceland to set the record straight on our behalf with a campaign that
stimulates our fans at home and abroad to share their stories about Iceland with the world.
Let’s use the media being used to spread the misperceptions of Iceland - news, social media, PR, blogs – to our
advantage, getting our fans to spread their stories, countering the tide of negative sentiment online.
