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Gap Year in Thailand

People think gap years are for ­privileged school leavers who would lounge on beaches and sink shots ­before ­going to university. Nowadays people of all ages and walks of life are ­exploring countries and taking on new ­challenges to stick on their CVs. READ MORE

Help Turtles in Costa Rica

A great opportunity to help safeguard the existence of these fascinating animals, whilst spending lots of time on the sun-kissed beaches of Costa Rica’s pristine Pacific coastline READ MORE

 

SOCIAL LINKS

MSC SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The challenge: MSC wanted to raise awareness of their products with new and younger audiences across the UK and Europe.  The groups were put off by preconceptions about cruising: e.g. ‘it’s expensive, it’s for older people, you never get to see the destinations properly’.  The campaign looked to target 6 core target markets globally. Heaven Publicity and Media Ark created a compeling campaign.

 Results: 

  • Six months of social media interaction with bloggers and their audiences and the brand - significantly raising the profile of MSC with key opinion formers, and creating the basis for an on-going relationship between bloggers, MSC and customers
  • Suite of 18 films produced for MSC future use in each of their key territories across Facebook, YouTube and email DM in 6 different languages. Videos got 19,000 views/618 hours of viewing on YouTube in just 3 weeks
  • Nearly 3 million interactions on twitter in 3 months – this means almost 3 million people heard about MSC cruises.
  • Content created for bloggers and MSC to be used for further promotion of the brand/website – excellent for SEO
  • ONe video alone got 10,000 views
  • Additional media coverage was generated about the project itself
  • £421K increase in sales
  • Positive feedback from all the territories and bookings were credited to this. A second project is currently underway.


Launching a new, world class ski resort in Japan 

The brief was to introduce skiing in Japan to the UK travel media - positioning Inghams as the most innovative ski operators, ensuring they are firmly established as the best in their market.
       Having worked and become friends with the most influential and important media for the market, we introduced Inghams MD to key ski writers and luxury travel and lifestyle journalists. We arranged meetings with key contacts (including Tatler, Vogue and Conde Nast Traveller) that ensured the Inghams MD was front of mind when thinking about ski and the new destination of Japan for winter holidays.          
        Furthermore, we achieved strong coverage in relevant media and secured press trips that resulted in great features where Inghams saw an initial 600 bookings from the media coverage alone. We also secured the BBC with a film crew and Colin Jackson to make the very last BBC Holiday film with a reach of 6.8 million viewers. This put Inghams in a very strong position for the following winter ski season.

Results: In summary, we arranged press trips for titles including the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Financial Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, Welove2ski,com, Conde Nast Traveller, The Sunday Times, Ski and Board, The Daily Mail Ski Magazine, The Independent, FT How to Spend it, Red Magazine, and Harpers Bazaar, Evening Standard and the Metro, LBC, The Today programme BBC Radio 4 and many more. The BBC film…. All articles featured in a timely manner.

 

“Not all Gap Years have to be a Gap Yah”

The brief was to highlight the opportunities of taking a gap year to the UK media. We created a publicity campaign for Real Gap Experience & i-to-i Volunteering holidays as an option to gain valuable work experience, new skills, personal challenges and cultural experience overseas, targeting 18 – 35 year olds as well as their teachers/lecturers and parents. With Real Gap Experience and i-to-i Volunteering we carried out research illustrating that a Gap Year experience can develop qualities required in the work place, as believed by over 500 employers of young recruits. To position Real Gap and i-to-i Volunteering as front of mind gap year providers. We secured Matt Lacey of Gap Yah viral campaign (Orlando) as a credible brand ambassador for the campaign who appealed to the core target audience. We used these findings to run a national radio campaign highlighting the benefits of gap year travel.
        Over the year’s campaign we also ran two press trips that would focus on the popular destinations of Costa Rica and Thailand. In addition we organised a young writer’s competition to win a trip and to write about it with National Geographic Traveller as well as a robust competition with Waterstone’s for the launch of Matt Lacey’s Gap Yah Plannah.

Results: In Summary we arranged two press trips for titles including  The Sunday Telegraph, The Sun, Red, Cosmopolitan, The Independent on Sunday, The Sunday Express, The People, The News of the World, National Geographic Traveller, The Press Association, Planet Confidential, Woman’s Weekly, ABTA magazine. The radio campaign featured on 153 radio stations with 30 audio features taken by target audience focused websites/blogs. This alone hit an audience of 1.5 million listeners and a total of 34 excellent travel features.  
Telegraph.co.uk article      People.co.uk article


A Passport to Adventure

The challenge was to make the Adventure brands of TUI Travel PLC's Adventure Division famous. Some of the company’s awareness levels in the UK were relatively low and we were set the task to create a buzz about Adventure travel. The travel companies included: The Adventure Company, Headwater, Exodus, Imaginative Traveller, Quark Expeditions, Peregrine and Geckos. We created a campaign that incorporated market research from YouGov and generated the first industry report about the Adventure market to show past, current and future trends.
        Results: As part of the campaign we worked with leading Adventurer Kate Humble and secured a total of 71 radio interviews about the report. Sitting on the TV sofa with Colin Stump, MD of Adventure we also secured 18 interviews for web TV channels. The report was launched at an Adventure themed media event at Inn the Park, St James Park where 68 media confirmed attendance. Attendees included influential freelancers plus travel editors from: Condé Nast Traveller, The Guardian, Guardian Unlimited, Harper’s Bazaar, The Independent, Men’s Health, Reader’s Digest and Times Online.
        All those who attended enjoyed a presentation on the report and received an electronic press pack. The release and report were featured in web, trade and national press. To help bolster coverage we secured 10 travel journalists on press trips for the brands for future coverage in national media to create compelling copy and third party endorsements. Highlights from these travel features included coverage in the Times Online, The Sun, Country Life, Scottish Herald and The Telegraph. 
www.apassporttoadventure.com