With my final blog i decided to take a different angle. I wanted to show that although television shows are a comfort of mine they are not my passion. After catching the travel bug last year i decided to take my studies in a different direction and do something that would give me the opportunities to work overseas. My travels only last 3 months but i came back a different person. I do realise that is a massive cliche, but sometimes cliches are true.
During my travels i discovered a great little website called Couchsurfing. I signed up and wrote my profile in about 10 minutes. This short process ended up changing my entire trip. I met people that gave me a bed to sleep in without charge. I had people that showed me their cities and everything they find dear about them. I got to see cities like a local. So when i returned back to Melbourne i thought it was only fair to invite people to come and stay with me in Melbourne. I had people from every corner of the world stay with me over a three month period. I made friends that will last me a lifetime and friends i’ve already arranged to meet up with in their home countries. I think the concept of Couchsurfing is brilliant and It would be great if it had a little more exposure for other broke, eager travellers like myself.
So my social marketing campaign is on the Couchsurfing website. I wanted to demonstrate all of the opportunities that the site offered by showing an average student (myself) in a number of amazing places and doing some incredible things. My idea was inspired by a short clip i saw about a man who travelled 36 countries over 3 years shooting footage on his GoPro. He collated it to look almost like one long selfie of him travelling through all of the countries. The video ended up going viral and was hugely successful for GoPro. Here is an article about it published in Time: Epic Selfie!
My campaign is a basic structure that is meant to be expanded upon. My slideshow could be transformed into a video that shows footage of these countries and their amazing views, whilst catching a traveler’s party experiences and funny travel moments. Each shot would represent a different country. I thought i could create a twist relating it back to Couchsurfing by having each frame end with the traveller curling up to sleep on all of the different couches. I also thought at the end of the video it could just be a simple flash to the Couchsurfing logo before showing the friends list and all of the positive comments. This highlights the ease and opportunities that it offers. It relates it back to Couchsurfing, but just subtly enough without overpowering the campaign. To engage the viewers the last part of the campaign could offer viewers the chance to win prizes by writing their best travel stories or actual Couchsurfing experiences and posting them on the website. The video would by initially presented via youtube and on the Couchsurfing Facebook and Twitter pages. It would stick to social media formats as they are the basis of news and entertainment for most young adults.
My target audience for my campaign is late teens to late twenty year olds. It is aimed primarily at University students that do not have a lot of money. The idea behind Couchsurfing is to show people your country but at the same time offer a way for people to travel for a lot cheaper. My campaign is made to excite the viewer with an adventure they may have thought was seemingly impossible and then show them that it is indeed possible with Couchsurfing. It is also strengthened in the youth market by its overall simplicity. The behavioural change lies in the viewer realising that they could afford to do all of these things by using Couchsurfing.
An article published in imedia connection explores a set of phases to run a successful marketing campaign for 18-34 year olds. The three phases involve interaction, engagement and being experiential. My interaction is the viewer’s chance to win prizes by submitting their personal stories. The article suggests humour which i think most of the stories would have.
In terms of engagement my campaign should highly stimulate the viewer. The content in my campaign is designed to by action packed and extremely engaging, so i think it covers that angle.
Within in the experiential phase it suggests creating values that lead viewers to embrace it. I feel that viewers would engage with my campaign because its angle is more moralistic then most others. It is encouraging people to see the world, it is not simply trying to push a product. I feel that there would be many students embracing this campaign and there is a chance it could potentially go viral. Here is a link to the imedia connection article
Tuned In 