Tips from award-winning marketing campaigns that you can use

PR STUNT/EXPERIENTIAL EVENT 

WINNER: TUI’S SANTA’S GOOD LIST

Liz Edwards, director of communications, reveals how Santa’s Good List was created: 

What were Tui’s key objectives with the PR stunt?

We wanted to create an engaging way to get people talking about Tui pre-turn-of-year and tie into conversations around Christmas, as well as showcasing Tui Lapland trips.

What was Santa’s Good List? 

In a world where Christmas is dominated by the must-have toys, we wanted to show the value of experiences. Jackson was the cheeky five-year-old who went viral when he threatened to punch Santa’s beard off. His dad filmed a heated discussion between the two of them over the possibility of the youngster being on “the naughty list” if his behaviour didn’t improve. We enlisted his help as our Chief Good List Officer to encourage kids to declare why they should be on the Good List, for a chance to win a family holiday to Lapland. The launch was supported with research highlighting the rise in holiday-based gifts and pinpointing the average age children remember their first trip.

How did you measure its success against KPIs? 

We looked at messaging in earned coverage, social engagements, views on our channels (over one million) and sentiment. We also had a micro site for competition entries so we could see traffic and click throughs to Tui’s Lapland page, which increased by 20,000.

What were your challenges? 

Jackson’s not an actor, and we needed to get an authentic performance from him. We did this by working with a talented director experienced in working with youngsters.

Did you source external help? 

We worked with our brilliant PR agency, One Green Bean, who came up with the creative and delivered the campaign within their annual retainer.

What advice would you share with other travel businesses planning their own original PR stunts? 

Keep it simple, culturally relevant to the audience you want to reach and be single-minded in the message you want to land.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION CAMPAIGN 

WINNER: INTREPID TRAVEL’S DIVERSIFYING THE TRAVEL MEDIA 

Chloe Berman, head of PR and communications EMEA, explains why travel writing needs more diversity:

What was the motivation behind the campaign?

At Intrepid, we believe it’s important that travel stories are told from different perspectives, so we decided to help address the lack of diversity in the UK travel media. We wanted to give emerging writers from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds a chance to make their mark on the industry. 

What was involved in the campaign and how did you measure success? 

We designed a press trip to Croatia in September 2023 that included four experienced travel writing mentors and four mentees. Working with journalist Lottie Gross and her Talking Travel Writing newsletter, we put out a call for applicants who had limited bylines or had never been on a press trip before. The trip equipped the mentees with the skills and knowledge to turn their experiences into commission-worthy pitches. We didn’t go into this campaign looking for a monetary return on investment, but instead measured success on the support we could provide for the mentees to progress their careers. Since the trip, all the mentees have secured commissions in key UK publications, and one secured a job writing for The Financial Times.

What is not considered diverse travel writing?

Often travel stories are told by people from a similar background, which means the reader is only seeing that destination or experience through one lens. If we have more diversity in travel writing, that will lead to much richer and more interesting storytelling. Language is important. At Intrepid we are careful to avoid language that is rooted in the legacy of colonialism. For example, we don’t use “colonial” as a positive adjective in our blog, trips or social captions, and ensure we don’t use imagery or language that objectifies or commodifies local communities or Indigenous people.

What reading materials promoting more diverse viewpoints would you recommend? 

There’s Adventure.com and the Talking Travel Writing newsletter, Vivienne Dovi has written about black solo female travel for Conde Nast Traveller and at Intrepid we have a range of resources including The Good Times: first person pieces from a diverse range of voices and our Ethical Marketing Guidelines.