A Couple’s Heart-Rates Directed This Tourism Ireland Ad
After months in development, Tourism Ireland is launching its first major global campaign since 2011: “Fill your heart with Ireland”, developed by Publicis London. An industry-first, this campaign has been created by the heart-rate data of two of its visitors.
Tourism Ireland invited a real married couple (who had never visited the island of Ireland before) to take a trip on the island, wearing custom-made technology to track their physiological responses along the way. The couple were hooked up to covert heart-monitors, which were linked to a head-mounted camera that captured all of their experiences. The data provided by these heart-rate monitors determined what footage featured in the advertising.
The result is a campaign that proves the heart-filling effect that the island of Ireland has on its visitors, whether they are kayaking in Achill Island on the west coast, exploring Devenish Island’s monastic sites in Northern Ireland, or climbing the highest sea cliffs in Europe at Slieve League on the north west coast.
The campaign launches Tourism Ireland’s new brand proposition: “Fill your heart with Ireland”. Commenting on the campaign, Mark Henry, Tourism Ireland’s Central Marketing Director said: “Our new campaign, ‘Fill Your Heart with Ireland’, presents Tourism Ireland with a great opportunity to drive continued growth to our regions and to encourage visitors to travel off-peak. It features locations that have been traditionally less visited by overseas visitors and highlights outdoor activities like cycling, walking and kayaking. We are confident that this new campaign will set the island of Ireland apart from our competitor destinations and help deliver another record year for overseas tourism in 2019.”
Tourism Ireland is focusing the new campaign on destinations that most viewers will not be aware of. The campaign showcases 16 less-well-known locations across the island, with all of them affecting the heart rates of our couple. This goes to show that even the hidden gems, just as much as the obvious attractions, can excite, inspire and entertain.
According to Mark Henry, “This is the world’s first-ever marketing campaign to use tourists’ biometric data to design an advert. We have combined data and creativity to literally show how the island of Ireland fills visitors’ hearts with positive emotion. The ad has researched extremely positively because viewers can see it is clearly authentic and credible, and it motivates them to want to travel to Ireland to experience this for themselves.”
Dave Monk, Executive Creative Director at Publicis London said: “Imagine being the World’s first heart-rated country. Not stars, words or reviews, just using emotional data to show how a country makes people feel. This is the first step on that journey. For the launch campaign, rather than just shouting our message that Ireland can ‘fill your heart’, we used a sprinkling of technology to prove that it really does”.
The campaign, featuring the track ‘Home again’ by Dublin band Delorentos, launches this week in cinemas, on TV, and on social platforms across Tourism Ireland’s key markets – Great Britain, the United States, France and Germany. The campaign will roll out further in the new year to Canada, Australia, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.
