Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC)

After Canada successfully hosted the 2010 Olympics, the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) set out a new 2010-2015 strategy to harvest the afterglow.

People’s travel decisions were being increasingly inspired by friends and larger online communities. The insight was to rally around the sharing of authentic “traveller-to-traveller” experiences.

The plan was to create a social media-inspired platform that showed authentic traveller experiences in a style mimicking the way consumers research their own trips. All elements would lead to the Keep Exploring interactive blog, which gave consumers a richer picture of the travel experience and allowed them to join and share the conversation.

On TV, instead of spending large sums on lavish productions, travellers’ personal trip videos were sourced from YouTube and used to tell a series of stories.

Print emulated Flickr and Facebook, and in major newspapers, the front cover was taken over with wraps that looked like a blog with QR codes linked to content.

Never-been-done-before online advertising used Google Maps and Street View technologies to virtually transport travellers onto real Canadian streets.

“Keep Exploring” has propelled Canada to being named the number one country brand in the world by FutureBrand. In 2010, international visitors made 15.9 million trips to Canada, up 2% compared with 2009, and the first four months of 2011 have continued the momentum with the majority of markets realizing visitation increases.