tover speculates for the Faroe Islands

Background Ideas

Issue
- No one knows where the Faroe Islands are, let alone feel inclined to take a vacation there
- Insight
  - The Faroe Islands have long been the neglected cousin of the Nordic nations – at least as far as the rest of the World is concerned.
  - Proposition
    - Get the islands noticed

Campaign Rationale

Digitally Re-mastering The Faroe Islands

A small archipelago mid-way between Scotland and Iceland, the Faroes are in fact a Danish dependency. Despite this, 50,000-strong inhabitants retain their own language (Faroese), ancient traditions and individual culture. Fishing, farming, and whaling remain key revenue drivers, but tourism is a burgeoning industry.

An additional idea: let’s take a cue from embedded products – the idea of infusing a food product with something holy or sublime. Similar to the Christian notion of transubstantiation (the literal changing of Communion bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ), there are a lot of products that claim to aid enlightenment – consider Intentional Chocolate; chocolate exposed to the electromagnetic brainwaves of Tibetan monks during production.

Executions

Augmented Reality

Imagine Faroe Cakes – Augmented Reality embedded cupcakes – a combination of print and online

Key influencers, journalists and bloggers travel sector would be sent a batch of these small treats, each of which is adorned with a disk of edible rice paper, which would act as an AR ‘glyph’.

When held up to a web camera (on a computer that has the right software), each glyph would showcase a different aspect of Faroese culture, geography or an attraction – such as: a tour of the capital, Torshavn; a Faroese music and/or design exhibition; footage of the Ólavsøka celebrations; and an interactive map that shows where the Faroes are as well as marking out points of interest.

PR:

The international scope of this activity would be enough to engage the travel press and bloggers. However, the press engaged with the advertising and marketing world would also be excellent targets. As a unique concept in itself, the campaign should be engaging enough for the international broadsheets, news, business and culture publications – e.g. The Guardian, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Business Week, Monocle etc.

Social Media

As expected, there’s not a great deal of diversity in the way the Faroes are marketed online. There’s no central Twitter hub called @faroes or similar. However, there are a couple of Facebook groups with sizeable followings: the Faroe Islands Podcast Group has 1000+ fans, and the Faroe Islands Page has over 17,000 fans. Neither appears to be affiliated to any organization. There is a Smyril Line Group (Faroese Shipping Line) with only 32 followers.

There’s every opportunity for this campaign to act as a definitive ‘landmark’ departure for the Faroes – its online arrival, setting up bespoke identities to bolster the wider campaign whilst developing and leveraging relationships with existing online affiliations.

Plan

This could be pitched to the Faroe Islands Tourist Board as a legitimate marketing idea – bringing awareness of their nation to a global audience.

Develop/pitch case to the Faroe Islands Tourist Board
Find a technology partner able to develop the project’s requirements
This would involve creating the software, glyph, and securing filmed footage to sync with the AR application.
Draw up a list of journalists and influential bloggers that we’d want to target across multiple sectors, try to gain an exclusive with the most notable.
We’d then source luxury cake makers in each of our influencers cities, organize some bespoke cupcakes, before sending each one the glyphs to print on to edible paper.
Once the cakes had been delivered along with instructions on where/how to download the correct software, we’d follow up to drive coverage and awareness globally.
At the same time, we’d craft news and social media announcements sold in to a targeted audience.

Key Websites

http://www.visitfaroeislands.com – Visit Faroe Islands

http://www.smyrilline.com/ – Passenger shipping line

http://www.62n.fo – Tour Operator

http://faroepodcast.blogspot.com/ – Faroe Islands Podcast

http://www.mess.fo/ – Mess magazine

http://www.heinesen.fo/faroeislandsreview/ – Faroe Islands Review

http://www.faroeislands.com/Default.aspx?pageid=9698

https://www.atlantic.fo/ – Atlantic Airlines

Additional Reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality