This month, more than three billion people from all over the world will have their eyes focused squarely on Vancouver and the rest of Canada. The Canadian Tourism Commission is banking that these viewers will be so enamored by the scenery and culture that they will flock to Canada long after the Games have moved on.
Susan Iris, vice-president, strategic initiatives and 2010 Winter Games for the CTC, said one way to do that is to leverage the attention of the roughly 10,000 media in town for the Games this month. "Our priority is to deliver on the promise of Canada’s Games," she said.
That includes providing everything from thousands of hours of raw footage and brand-filtered videos, to media events partnering with Agricultural Canada and the four host First Nations, to an Olympic Torch Relay international media program.
Iris said the CTC created the National Tourism Marketing Working Group, comprised of people from every province and territory to identify gaps in imagery, stories and footage.
The result is more than 2,300 hours of high-definition footage, 350 videos and 500 still images for the social media space and 25 video/photo story packages of Olympic athletes and international torchbearer’s trips to Canada and another 25 Canada-themed features available exclusively to the 80 rights-holding broadcasters.
"We’ve been shooting, writing, editing and taking photos and we’ve put it all in our digital asset management system," she said. "We want to ensure that the stories that we are telling go beyond what’s happening at the Games themselves, but are about culture and lifestyle."
As part of the Olympic Torch Relay program, the CTC brought in 14 international celebrities such as India Bollywood star Akshay Kumar, Australia’s Olympic gold-medal winner Alisa Camplin and German opera singer Anna Maria Kaufmann to carry the torch and give their home countries another reason to cover Canada.
The CTC also brought its media relations specialists from nine international markets to work with journalists from their assigned countries, and produced the 2010 Winter Games Canadian Experience Guide, which suggests media stories that define Canada and what makes the country unique to visitors.
In 2007 the Canadian government handed over $26 million to the CTC with the sole objective of leveraging the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Iris said 50% of the budget was directed to marketing before and during the Games, while the balance will go to what they call "harvesting the afterglow."
"The third part of our strategy is on conversion, so about 50% of the investment will be post games," said Iris, adding they will launch an international ad campaign immediately after the Games with offers that create a sense of urgency to travel to Canada.
"Our biggest focus will be in 2010 and 2011 and our strategy is to focus on the markets that would give us the highest return on investment and ensure that we were speaking to high-yield customers," she said.
