CASE STUDY: Canberra Tourism's social-media 'Human brochure' bid pays off

Background
Based on the insight that tourists treat recommendations and reviews from friends more seriously than traditional advertising, agency The Works and Australian Capital Tourism decided to use social media to promote Canberra. 

Aim
To broaded Canberra's appeal beyond a day-trip destination and create greater advocacy

Execution
The campaign called for 500 humans to visit Canberra and share their experiences on social media platforms using #HumanBrochure via an online and TV campaign. All posts that included the hashtag were then aggregated on the campaign's website. 

The initial launch phase was in October last year. This year a further 250 people spent 15 to 17 February in Canberra taking part in activities across four streams: food & wine; arts & culture; family fun; and adventure.

Results
In excess of 31,000 people applied to be one of the 500 selected to take part in one of the two weekends. The campaign drew more than 14,500 posts across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram over the two weekends, with more than 6,000 posts on the second weekend alone. The social sharing is estimated to have reached 4.3 million people. Sentiment analysis of the posts using #HumanBrochure—which were not moderated—was 93 per cent positive or neutral.