Putting Japan Back on the Map for Canadian Tourists
Putting Japan Back on the Map for Canadian Tourists.
Background
The pandemic had closed Japan’s borders and thus shuttered its tourism industry. And although global tourism had largely resumed by the first quarter of 2022, Japan’s borders remained closed to independent tourists until October of 2022. Research conducted by the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) revealed that 37% of Canadians would like to visit Japan but only 9% currently had the country on their shortlist. Most saw a visit to Japan as a distant, once in a lifetime experience and felt intimidated by the sheer range of places to see and things to do.
We needed to increase awareness and consideration among travelers by raising Japan’s profile as an easy and convenient destination for first-time Canadian visitors.
Charting a Course
We design a creative communications strategy that challenges the conventional idea that Japan is a ‘once in a lifetime’ trip and framed a Japanese vacation as something that can be accomplished in a week.
We launched a campaign entitled #OneWeekinJapan that promotes weeklong vacations built around rich but simple itineraries, which ultimately suggest that if you enjoy your week, there’s plenty to bring you back.
We developed a trip-planning website that enables travelers to choose from a range of experiences, including culinary adventures, sports and outdoor activities among many others, and spread the word through a digital campaign that leverages and upends familiar calendar archetypes, quite literally clearing the schedules of potential travelers and allowing them to immerse themselves in a variety of experiences. In each execution, one for every day of the week, an aspirational visual representing one of the many facets of Japanese culture interacts with an animated calendar, which then reacts to the action of the video. This idea is further supported by a unique media strategy that serves up the ads on the depicted days of the week.
The creative campaign also extends to audio mediums. A 30 second Spotify ad distills a weeklong trip to Japan into an immersive collage of sound effects.
Arriving at the Destination
The campaign had serious impact.
- Advertising awareness rose 100%, which attracted in three and half times more organic website traffic.
- Additionally, 75% of those surveyed have said the campaign made them want to visit Japan.
- And there was a 12% bump in those that ranked Japan as their number one destination to visit.
