CASE STUDY: Mobile-friendly UGC campaign overachieves for HKTB

Objective

The Hong Kong Tourism Board wanted to raise awareness and recommendation of Hong Kong as a repeat travel destination for short-haul tourists from Asia.

Specifically, the HKTB wanted to target existing and new tourists travelling from Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand. (Mainland China was not a target for this campaign.)

The aim was to reach not only those who had never been to Hong Kong but also those who felt they had 'been there, done that'. 

Execution

The key message for the campaign was that Hong Kong is about more than its famous landmarks; it offers a great variety of rich experiences.  

Because travellers trust other travellers, HKTB and Razorfish built a way to let the people who have explored the city and uncovered its hidden gems show Hong Kong to the world.

The 'I Never Knew Hong Kong' campaign was an influencer-driven campaign that aimed to reveal Hong Kong’s hidden attractions and experiences by encouraging fans to share an incredible Hong Kong story. Travellers were able to find new things to do in HK with a mobile social site that aggregated global visitors’ #discoverhongkong user-generated content. 

Results

The campaign, the first user-generated campaign the HKTB has run, delivered more than 10,000 peer-to-peer recommendations and 5 million video views for Hong Kong in just four weeks (28 March to 24 April, 2016)—a new recommendation every five minutes. In all, 4.2 million people viewed the campaign site over that time.

The campaign received not only a high volume of entries, but also a high quality level, specifically among video entries, which shared the untold love stories of Hong Kong. Even the team working on the campaign learned about things they never knew.

Tina Chao, general manager, marketing, HKTB:

The 'I Never Knew Hong Kong' campaign helped us shift the peer-to-peer narrative for Hong Kong away from being a destination to see impressive places, to being a destination that offers a rich variety of experiences. A record-breaking UGC campaign that exceeded our expectations and achieving all the KPIs. We’re delighted.

Seton Vermaak, head of strategy, Razorfish Hong Kong:

We knew recommendations (content creation) from travellers would be mobile-first, so we ensured the experience of participating was seamless for mobile. Further to that, we partnered with a powerful social-aggregation platform to ensure our site experience was not only mobile-first, but also social-first. This aggregation meant the stories were pushed live to our campaign website in real time, where many other travellers could easily browse a mobile friendly design.

CREDITS

Razorfish
Head of Strategy - Seton Vermaak
Associate Creative Director - Nathan Hau
Senior Account Manager - Kristy Tam
Senior Project Manager - Agnes Ng
Assistant Art Director - Jacob Lloyd
Creative Group Head / Copy - Jean Ng
Copywriter - Joyce Ma
Social Executive - Miranda Kong
Technical Team Lead - Kevin Ng

Hong Kong Tourism Board
General Manager, Marketing - Tina Chao
Senior Manager, Brand Marketing - Michelle Tan
Executive, Brand Marketing - Yani Wong
Manager, Brand Marketing - Farrida Lui
Assistant Manager, Brand Marketing - Emily Wong
Senior Executive, Brand Marketing - Queenie Cheng

Media
Maker Studios (Singapore), Mindshare