Augmented Design: Visit Campaigns

Since I think I want to base my designs on promoting Cyprus as a place to visit and learn about; I wanted to do some research into other countries that have done similar campaigns.

Britons - GREAT campaign

The GREAT Campaign, present in over 60 countries, aims at promoting the best of Great Britain by creating opportunities in the areas of business, education and tourism. GREAT is supported by different pillars that highlight areas of British expertise such as: technology, innovation, culture, sport, legacy, music, sustainability, creativity and entrepreneurship.

By promoting all of these different aspects, it captures the interest of a much wider range of people by finding something to suit everyone. As well as encouraging people to come from abroad to visit Britain, the campaign also gives British citizens a patriotic feeling by reinforcing all the great things to come out of Britain and reminding them about all the things there is to do in Britain. This helps to also bring in revenue from the British having holidays at home rather than setting off to another country.

The design aspect of the advert is relatively straight forward, by having the same caption in the top left of each photo "........ is great" and then underneath "Britain". By doing this they form a strong theme throughout all of their designs which reinforces how great Britain is! Underneath they write a blurb explaining why it is so great. The large bold san-serif font works well as it is punchy and in your face showing off with pride how Great Britain is. The one aspect of the design I'm not a fan of is the half British flag which appears either at the bottom or the side of each design. To me it looks like a squished image and is really rather distracting from the image. I can understand why it needs to be there, to show at first glance it is Britain they are talking about but I don't personally like it.

100% New Zealand, 100% Middle Earth 

New Zealand created the advertising campaign called 100% New Zealand. The aim of the campaign is to tell the story of how the country's unique combination of landscapes, people and activities cannot be found anywhere else in the world - it is a "100% Pure New Zealand" visitor experience.

Similar to the Great Britian Campain they use a selection of images showing off different aspects with the caption "100%.... ...." The campaign works well as the breath taking images are not ruined by over complicated text, it simply says the saying in white. The images are allowed to speak for themselves.

More recently with the new Hobbit films they have changed their campaign to 100% New Zealand, 100% Middle Earth with the aim to take advantage of that global profile by showing how easily the fantasy of The Hobbit movies can become reality in the form of a New Zealand holiday. This again works incredibly well because it gives someone a real alternative to the fantasy world, you can actually visit where it is filmed! its not created digitally.

Below are a few examples of the normal campaign and then a video advert of their 100% Middle Earth campaign.

Theres Nothing Like Australia

A similar campaign was started to promote Australia. The posters still use images as the background but tend to have actors in it, which promotes the life style. The viewer puts themselves in that position and buys into that life style. The campaign uses a softer humanistic font which is more subtle than the last two ad campaigns I've looked at. However this isn't a bad thing as it feels more like a friend is writing to you and telling you how amazing it is, it feels like trustworthy advice.