2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

Egypt is facing a major challenge hindering its position to regain its position as a top global destination; this challenge is that of perception. News coverage in the past few years have resulted in misconception dropping it off the consideration list of travelers. The world of travel and tourism communication has changed, to the digital world and peer to peer being key factors in considering, planning and booking. Further, Egyptian’s local perspective on their country was positive than the foreign perspective. Our objective, to close the perception gap and highlight Egypt’s diversified experiential offering utilizing locals. #thisisegypt, was adopted as the official Egyptian tourism hashtag as a tool to both counter the negative imagery circulating global via social media and share the diverse experiences. A digital platform was created to curate the positive images tagged to #thisisegypt. Upon launch a video was seeded online showcasing the diverse experiences.

The Campaign

Our objective, to close the perception gap and highlight Egypt’s diversified experiential offering utilizing locals. #thisisegypt, began as an initiative from Egypt’s youth, to showcase their country in a different light; it was then adopted as the official Egyptian tourism hashtag as a tool to both counter the negative imagery circulating global via social media and share the diverse experiences. We recruited local social media influencers to advocate and encourage their local followers to show the world their perspective on Egypt. thisisegypt.com curated the images tagged. This video was picked up by local talk shows. As well as, several local media outlets offering free airing of the video, to maintain the momentum; in addition to publications, online and print, featuring call to action messages. All without any media spend. These images have been showcased through TV, OOH, and digital; all with zero media spend.

Creative Execution

Local social media influencers were invited, Egyptians invited using an online video, PR supported via broadcast media, the website was used to curate the images, communicated to Arab neighbors and international community showcasing diverse experiences, Egyptians who tagged their images to #thisisegypt were recognized to a followup of the campaign using TV, OOH, and digital.

The hashtag the pickup on Instagram has only been rising - starting with around 10,000 posts. Once officially launched, the campaign was picked up by local channels and aired daily on the nightly talk shows, online with the push of our local social media influencers within 48 hours, the online copy received 300,000 views no paid media. Organic hype, Egyptians’ interest in seeing their country in a different light, and in turn showing the world. Currently the hashtag reached 200,000 posts across platforms in 2 months. Also being adopted by brands for their activations. Video received up to 680,000 views. Reaching 700 million total impressions