#MoreThan

Located in the most northern part of the United Arab Emirates, Ras Al Khaimah is a fascinating destination just waiting to be discovered.

By using international and local media channels through traditional and digital mediums, #MoreThan would be the enhanced evolution to the successful #iFoundRAK campaign; today’s holiday-makers are looking to create memories. The campaign would emphasise brand awareness and online bookings, from Europe and Middle Eastern holidaymakers. After the #iFoundRAK campaign success in 2019, Ras Al Khaimah reported the highest sales on record, and later Ras Al Khaimah was awarded the title of Gulf Tourism Capital 2020.

Challenge

Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority needed two essential goals met within the final quarter of 2019, both of which required a mix of global and local marketing efforts to be successful.

Ras Al Khaimah’s communications needed to:

• Increase the international awareness of the Ras Al Khaimah brand and the emirates’ core offerings as a destination for holidays and travel.
• Communicate the idea of Ras Al Khaimah as a tourism and travel destination to European and Middle Eastern markets.
• Increase the bottom line revenue of Ras Al Khaimah’s online and real-world activities, such as their beaches, adventure, views, culture and sports.

To achieve our campaign goals for this winter season campaign, we’d also call upon all our learnings from the #iFoundRAK campaign launched earlier in 2019.

Solution

Using Crowd creativity, and a local understanding of our audience, we developed the campaign: #MoreThan Winter Sun, speaking to what is on offer in Ras Al Khaimah during the winter season.

The rationale was simple; today’s holiday-makers are looking for more than just the Winter Sun – they’re looking to create memories.

As one of the most diverse emirates in the UAE, Ras Al Khaimah is the perfect destination for modern holiday-makers. With its unique location along the turquoise Arabian coastline, this well-kept secret offers year-round sunshine plus a whole host of activities, landscapes and rich cultural experiences.

By using ‘More Than’ as a creative copy platform, we can describe everything that Ras Al Khaimah has to offer, and position it as the Winter Sun destination that offers more than you could ever expect.

And as well as being flexible, the ‘More Than’ campaign adds even more value to an already competitively priced holiday. This allows Ras Al Khaimah to compete more effectively with some other Winter Sun destinations, and ensure it appears on our audiences’ wish-list.

How it was executed:

To ensure that every message was distributed to our international and local target markets, Crowd executed a multi-layered digital approach, broken down in the following parallels:

• Programmatic partner placements of #MoreThan messages. Our partners included: Sojern and Travel Audiences giving the campaign a highly targeted audience, within our market segments
• Online Tourism Agency (OTA) partner placements on channels: TripAdvisor, Expedia and WEGO.
• TripAdvisor and Expedia were selected for international reach, and WEGO would be positioned for local GCC markets.
• Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram and Google ad placements formed the bulk of the #MoreThan campaign’s investment for brand awareness and website traffic.

Crowd developed two distinct campaigns to create more distinct messaging for European marketing and Middle Eastern markets.

• Focusing on European audiences, Crowd developed the #MoreThan Winter Sun message campaign, which sought to enhance Ras Al Khaimah’s core pillars: Culture & History, Beach and Leisure and Adventure, for a European perspective on beaches, open sunny sky and luxury.
• For the GCC, Crowd focused on audiences interested in weekend staycations, and therefore, advertised the message of #MoreThan Weekend Getaways. The campaign emphasised messaging on Ras Al Khaimah’s pillars, while also including coverage of local events, such as the Spartan Race and the New Year’s Eve Celebration.

We wanted to showcase real people enjoying real life in Ras Al Khaimah, to increase brand reliability and credibility, thus, we only utilised quality User Generated Content (UGC) in all advertising creative.

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