This year’s “Quebec Original” campaign from the province’s tourism organization is once again leaning heavily on interactive and video work, but this time is doing so to show just how many things you can do over the course of a single trip.
Handled by Lg2, “A Room With Many Views” is a short documentary that follows a couple staying in a small room that is flown and shipped across Quebec over the course of two weeks. That means every morning they step out into a very different part of the same province, from more natural settings like farmlands, forests and whale watching on the St. Lawrence river, to more urban environments like music festivals and Old Quebec’s Château Frontenac.
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In addition to the main “hero” video, there are a number of shorter, 15-second videos focusing on individual themes, attractions and experiences.
Much like last year’s campaign from the tourism agency, the core of the project is living online in the form of an interactive documentary. The 360-degree video experience is divided into seven different interest-based sections: outdoors and nature; river and whales; fish and wildlife; activities and adventures; gastronomy; culture and creativity; and Montreal’s 375th birthday celebrations. In each section, a narrator describes the landscape in front of the user before they click to find more specific information about individual attractions and things to do. They can then move to other parts of the province, or to a section covering another interest.
Sébastien Viau, VP of sales and marketing at Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec, says while last year’s campaign – told from the perspective of a blind man to reinforce how Quebec could excite someone’s other sense – was well-received and generated views numbering in the millions, the concept was a bit too high-level for the general consumer. This year, the video and the experience are slightly more grounded in the actual product and things to do on a trip to Quebec.
The Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec is an organization for all the marketing boards and agencies in the province, and recently set out a strategic roadmap for the next three years. Viau says one of the pillars of that road map is finding ways to have a multi-product, multi-market approach by showing of a diverse range of things that might attract travelers to the province.
“It’s really to, in a more seductive way, stop a potential traveler and put Quebec on their list of destinations,” he says. “This campaign is from the point of view of someone from outside of Quebec that has the experience of living through everything the province has to offer. The message that gives is that there is a wide, very large variety of activities you can live when you come to Quebec.”
Besides the “having something for everyone” aspect of that approach, showing a diverse range of attractions also fits in with other consumer insights. Tourisme Quebec is targeting English Canada, the eastern U.S. and France with the campaign, and Viau says many people in those markets have been to Quebec before and may not realize there are enough different things to do in the province to warrant another trip.
Viau adds there are plans to eventually adapt it for the Chinese market. Tourisme Quebec has targeted travelers from China in the past mostly through trade marketing and PR efforts, but Viau says this would be the first time it has launched a direct-to-consumer campaign in the market.
