BBC and Tourism Malaysia

Insight

With valuable creative support and strategic direction from BBC Advertising, Tourism Malaysia’s campaign raised Malaysia’s profile as a world-class destination, appealing to their key audience of affluent travellers. 

Tourism Malaysia wanted to showcase the diverse travel experiences available in Malaysia to a global audience, promoting the country as a world-class travel destination with something for everyone.

Key objectives:

• Target affluent, long and short haul business and leisure travellers across the globe.

• Raise awareness of the diverse holiday experiences available in Malaysia under four key themes of food, arts, adventure and relaxation.

• Promote its upcoming ‘Visit Malaysia Year 2014’ where visitors can enjoy a year of festivities and celebrations.

Strategy

As a long standing advertising partner with Tourism Malaysia, BBC Advertising conducted a bespoke advertising effectiveness research study at the end of its 2012 campaign that asked how potential visitors view Malaysia and the role played by any advertising they see on BBC platforms in terms of forming their perceptions.

The findings showed that Malaysia is the third most visited holiday destination in Asia. Asian tourists are the most likely to visit Malaysia while there was comparably low awareness amongst Australians and Europeans.

Malaysia needed to improve its current position by tapping into the positive perceptions of the country - that it is ideal for family holidays; is a low-cost travel destination and with a wide variety of cuisine available.

The research also demonstrated that BBC platforms rank amongst other leading travel resource websites in influencing travel decisions when planning a holiday.

The research helped direct BBC Advertising’s communication strategy and weighting of Tourism Malaysia’s 2013 campaign to focus more on Australian and European audiences.

Execution

Tourism Malaysia had creative already produced for TV and online commercials and so it was looking to BBC Advertising to propose a tactical media plan aligned to relevant quality content to communicate and promote ‘Visit Malaysia year 2014’.

BBC Advertising proposed an advertising campaign on BBC World News, BBC Knowledge, bbc.com, lonelyplanet.com and in Lonely Planet magazine.

The campaign ran from February to December 2013 and was targeted to appear alongside content relevant to the BBC’s travel audience and upweighted to audiences in Australia and Europe. 

The heart of the creative proposal was the production of a bespoke printed Lonely Planet guidebook. The Guide’s aim was to inspire an affluent audience to travel to Malaysia. Written by expert travel writers from the Lonely Planet team, Meet Malaysia highlighted key themes important to this demographic:  food and drink; arts and culture; nature and adventure; leisure and relaxation. 

The mini guide was produced primarily for use as marketing collateral at key travel events and was distributed at Tourism Malaysia's stand at World Travel Market in London in November 2013.

Results

The campaign was effective in reaching Tourism Malaysia’s key objectives:

- 232% uplift in brand favourability among those who had seen the campaign on BBC platforms against those who had not seen the ad.

- 67% of those who saw the ad on BBC platforms said that they would consider visiting or recommend visiting Malaysia.

- Those who had seen advertising on one of the BBC platforms were 63% more likely to have visited Malaysia than those that saw the ad elsewhere.

Source: BBC Adscore 2013.

“BBC Advertising has again proved a valuable and proactive partner, giving Tourism Malaysia a perfect platform to reach out to our key audiences, offering new perspectives and excellent creative guidance,” says Dato Abdul Khani Daud, Director, Advertising Division, Tourism Malaysia.

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Brand:
Tourism Malaysia
Category:
Travel/Airlines
Region:
Australasia
Europe
Global
date:
February - December 2013
Media Owner:
BBC Advertising
Media Channel:
Print,TV
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