Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Advertising

To Buoy Tourism in Bermuda, a Campaign Turns to Social Media

An ad campaign by Bermuda’s tourism office enlisted popular users of social networks like Instagram.

RONALD REAGAN was in office and “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles topped the Billboard charts when tourism plateaued in Bermuda, which in 1987 welcomed about 478,000 air travelers. In 2013, fewer than half that many landed in Bermuda, about 236,000, and hotels had an occupancy rate of 57 percent, down from a prerecession rate of 67 percent in 2007.

“Bermuda has been a little bit forgotten,” said Victoria Isley, the chief marketing and sales officer of the Bermuda Tourism Authority, who took the post in April after leading Destination Marketing Association International, a trade association. “So we’re looking at how to help consumers get to know Bermuda, to really get an understanding of its essence.”

To do so, the island is turning to where travelers increasingly learn about destinations: social media. The marketers flew popular users of networks like Instagram, the photo-sharing app, and Tastemade, whose users make quirky videos about restaurants, to the island. Those so-called influencers are posting about their visits to their networks, and the content is being used in more traditional advertising, too.

In a partnership with Travel & Leisure, for example, the magazine’s marketing department hired two popular Instagram users, Ali Jardine, who has 509,000 followers, and Josh Johnson, who has 654,000 followers, to take photographs of the island and write captions, much as they normally would on the social network.

A stunning image of a Bermuda beach that Ms. Jardine posted on Nov. 24 was “liked” more than 8,500 times on Instagram, while a shot that Mr. Johnson posted the same day of a family net-fishing along the shore there received more than 2,600 “likes.”

The magazine is also promoting the posts on its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. A print ad in the magazine’s January issue, which goes on newsstands on Dec. 19, and digital ads on its website, which began appearing on Tuesday, also feature the images.

Tourism bureaus have been running what are commonly called advertorials in publications for decades, often with brochure-worthy photography and article-length text. But Jay Meyer, the publisher of Travel & Leisure, said that content from popular social media users was far more compelling.

“It’s very different than a destination writing a story about itself, which was happening 20 years ago,” Mr. Meyer said about tourism advertorials of yore. “These are personalities and real travelers and real photographers — people talking about a destination in a certain way that resonates with your consumer set.”

In another aspect in what is often called influencer marketing, marketers with the travel publisher Afar Media assigned writers and producers to conduct interviews and create branded-content videos featuring well-known residents discussing what they like best about the island. Subjects include Michael Swan, an entrepreneur and artist, and Rebecca Hanson, a designer of Bermuda shorts whose TABS line incorporates colors of local flora, fauna and architecture. As with Travel & Leisure, the subjects will also be featured in print advertisements, in this case in an interview format.

Joe Diaz, co-founder of Afar, said idyllic yet far-fetched imagery in both feature articles and advertising was neither effective nor interesting.

“The photo of the model on the elephant on a deserted beach is not something that is as valued now as maybe it was before, and I’ve traveled a lot and I’ve never seen that happen,” Mr. Diaz said. “Kudos to Bermuda for trusting us and saying, ‘These guys know how to do this, we’re going to give them the keys to the car and let them navigate the way they see fit.' ”

For the promotion with Tastemade, several popular contributors to the site, which primarily features short do-it-yourself videos about restaurants, were dispatched to make promotional videos about the island’s restaurants, food markets, bars and fishermen.

A Google poll released in January found that among affluent travelers — those with household incomes of at least $250,000 — 64 percent of respondents said the Internet was the source of inspiration for choosing destinations, tying with family, friends and colleagues. Magazines and newspapers followed with 44 percent, and television with 31 percent.

A more traditional print advertising campaign introduces the tagline “Proper fun,” to highlight that Bermuda, as a British independent territory, is where “British charm meets island soul.” One with the text, “Board Games. Bermuda Style,” shows a couple on paddleboards; another that reads “Rockin’ it. Bermuda Style” shows a woman in a yoga pose on a rocky beach. The ads, by Fuseideas in Boston, will appear in publications including Condé Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure and Garden & Gun.

The new campaign aims to reach travelers with household incomes of $200,000 or more.

Advertising expenditures for the first three months of the campaign are estimated at $2 million. The island spent $8.3 million on tourism advertising in 2013, and $4.3 million in the first six months of 2014, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

Ms. Isley, the Bermuda marketer, recalled growing up in Virginia Beach in the 1970s and neighbors, returning from vacations, inviting her family over for a slide show. Bermuda is promoting itself through social media channels, she continued, partly because those networks are the modern versions of such occasions.

“Today, well-heeled, well-traveled people are doing the helicopter tour in Alaska and instantaneously uploading their 20 images of that for 400 of their friends to see,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: To Buoy Tourism, a Campaign Turns to Social Media. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT