Providing a glimpse at its “Great” offerings, Visit Britain has launched a sweeping OOH and print campaign to tempt Canadians to visit Great Britain.

For Great Britain, 2012 is an opportune year to promote itself as it has a fair share of reasons for travellers to visit this year. Among the high-profile events, there will be the celebration of World Pride in London, the 200-year anniversary of Charles Dickens’s birth as well as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, not to mention the highly-anticipated Summer Olympics.

Ted Flett, PR and communications manager, Visit Britain, Canada, says that the campaign will focus on artwork that depicts three of seven “Great” pillars – culture, heritage and outdoors – as he claims that these themes resonate strongly with Canadians.

All material was placed collaboratively by agencies MediaCom Canada and Kinetic with creative by London-based Mother Advertising, says Flett, adding that the majority of the ads will be placed in major commuter areas such as Union Station, the Yonge & Bloor TTC station and along the Gardiner Expressway, as well as at Yonge-Dundas Square.

In line with the commuter targeting, there will also be ads in the PATH underground walkways, at GO and TTC stations as well as in Metro newspapers.

Canada is not the only market getting the new campaign. In major cities in the US, Australia, China, Japan, France, Germany, India and Brazil, the same creative with varying pillars will be splashed against subway trains and stations, buildings and taxis – all to catch the commuter audience.

And the tourism agency is especially interested in the abundant baby boomer market.

“The boomer audience is certainly one of interest to Britain, based on their propensity to travel,” he says, adding that because of the range and diversity of literary, anniversary and gay pride celebrations in 2012 they expect to attract both niche and general audiences.

In total, the campaign cost £25 million to roll-out in 14 different cities and Flett says that the objective is to drive for an additional 4.6 million visitors and £2.3 billion in visitor spending as well as the creation of 60,000 new jobs in Great Britain’s tourism and hospitality industry.

Flett believes that Canada is an important market to invest in with up to 686,000 Canucks visiting Britain each year and spending up to £513 million (approx $803 million), according to the 2010 International Passenger Survey.