The challenge was to position Flight Centre as a ‘cool’ brand within the youth travel segment.
The solution was a user generated content (UGC) platform with all the viral and social components and mechanisms to facilitate as great a reach as possible.
The result was over 9,000 participants resulting in 100,000 YouTube views, 175,000 crowdsourced Google search results, and 1,000,000 page views in two months. Brand evangelists, a connected community and 6 hires.
The initial launch strategy was intended to engage blogger and social media communities.
Leveraging word of mouth via Twestival and Podcamp TO sponsorship to launch Best Travel Job Ever.
We recognized that to best leverage word of mouth and Social Media reach it was beneficial (and made us feel pretty darn good) for Best Travel Job Ever to support charity events and barcamp conferences such as Twestival Canada and PodCamp Toronto. This facilitated a face to face way to quickly spread the word about Best Trave Job Ever to the Social Media community.
This was a key part to ensuring the best possible marketing success for Best Travel Job Ever.
Click here to watch Best Travel Job Ever (BTJE) Finalists’ videos on YouTube.
Coverage in TechVibes;
‘Over the past 6 months Flight Centre’s BestTravelJobEver.com‘s contest has been giving Canadian’s with a passion for travelling and vlogging an opportunity to win a Grand Prize trip to Australia.
Flight Centre ran the content in search of people that are passionate about travel and who wanted to spend the summer video blogging their experience from an exotic destination.’
Over 100 video entries were submitted and over 12,000 people voted on the Top 25.
Gregg Tilston is the Social Media Manager for Flight Centre:
For our inaugural year, we were absolutely thrilled by the number of entries, votes, page views and media support. We couldn’t have asked for anything more the first time around and we’re looking forward to making some improvements to make it even better next year.
From the Top 25, the 6 semi-finalists were chosen by a celebrity judge panel which included Josie Dye (102.1 The Edge & CosmoTV), Suzanne Christie (Open Jaw Network & Takeoffeh.com) and Scott Stratten (un–marketing.com). The celebrity judges chose the Grand Prize winners and the fan favourite was voted on by the public.
And the winners are…
Mike Corey from New Maryland, New Brunswick and Sam Macmillan from Vancouver, BC. Mike and Sam have each won a trip to Australia courtesy of Intrepid Travel and Air Canada as well as clothing from Roots Canada, camera gear from Henry’s Photo and $2,000 cash.
Coverage in Travel Press;
‘Flight Centre has teamed up with Air Canada, Intrepid Travel, Roots Canada and Henrys to launch the Best Travel Job Ever contest. Flight Centre and its partners want to find people who are passionate about travel and want to spend the summer video blogging their experience from an exotic destination.’