Visit California partners with famous youtubers and youtube channel to reach a younger audience

For March’s post, we have chosen a once again very interesting article that deals with the subject of digital influencers, titled “To goose tourism, California turns to YouTube stars” retrieved from Digiday.

(Source : www.flickr.com)

A quick summary of the article

In August 2015, Visit California in partnership with AwesomenessTV launched its first Web series on YouTube called “First Times with Jenn & Jack.” During 11 episodes, Jenn McAllister and Jack Baran – two young and famous youtubers – test various activities in California such as skydiving, jetpacks and rodeo roundup. All videos are available to see here. On February 26^th, 2016 the most popular one – 5. Santa Monica Pier – amounted to 434,143 views.

(Source : www.flickr.com)

Sahil Patel, the article’s author, reports the words of Jennifer Sweeney, Visit California’s director of PR. She says young audience is difficult to reach and YouTube is a way for them to “showcase the state” to this audience. AwesomenessTV has been chosen as a partner for the reason that 66% of its audience is between the ages of 13 and 24.

Visit California motto – which you can find on their website – is “Dream Big.” Their YouTube videos aim at being inspirational and show that California is the one state where you can “make your dreams come true.”

Our impressions and opinion on the Web series

- The first thing we appreciated about the videos is that they are allowing an immersive experience. Both youtubers carry a GoPro camera on their forehead. They are giving their impressions during and after each activity. It is a ‘real-time testimony’ that cannot be faked.

- The second thing we enjoyed is that there is a mixture between videos recorded by youtubers’ GoPro and the regular videos recorded by professional cameraman. It allows viewers to see all behind the scenes and enjoy nice shots of California beautiful landscapes.

- The third thing we liked is that videos have an appropriate length, between 6 and 8 minutes each. It is the kind of short videos you can watch in public transport when you are going to school.

- Even though we are in the target audience (13 to 24 yo), we felt like the youtubers were a bit young (around 18 yo) compared to us. It makes it a little more difficult to identify ourselves to them.

Also it is interesting to see that Visit California YouTube channel counts other web series targeting different audiences. One about California’s culinary specialties titled “California Dream Eater”  presented by Chase Ramsey a famous Director, Choreographer, Actor, and Designer. And another one about sports titled “Joe Montana in Bay Area or Bust” presented by Joe Montana a famous former professional American football quarterback.

(Source : www.flickr.com)

Working with digital influencers to reach a well targeted audience

It appears to us that digital influencers such as bloggers and youtubers have reinvented the way marketers use personalities to advertise their products or services. We think that it is easier to identify ourselves to ‘real people’ than to famous actors or actresses. We are used to get inspiration from videos or pictures of destinations we see on internet. By gathering opinions and experiences from authentic digital personalities we feel better informed than through traditional commercials because it is genuine.

Also, by making use of digital influencers, companies reach a well targeted audience. However, YouTube may be more of a platform used by young people (under 30 yo), at least on a daily basis.

Lise Cimbolini 
& Trung Duc Nguyen

The Social Media Revolution

As part of generation Y, we love images. How could we not? We grew up with the television! Nowadays, our thirst for images can be sustained thanks to Internet and cable TV.

We embrace learning with videos, and that’s why we decided to browse Youtube in search of a fun video to share with you. We fell across this montage posted by Socialnomics 09 in association with the HULT International Business School! ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng )

This video montage will keep you on the edge of your seat, thanks to the music, and makes learning fun and exciting with its amusing facts! Did you know that social media overtook pornography as the number one activity on the web? Or that 96% of generation Y has joined a social network?

Indeed, they are amusing facts, but they also empower you with useful knowledge. Why spend millions on television advertising when the positive Return on Investment is lower than 18%?

This video tries to teach sceptics that the future will not be done without social media and that if you are running a business, then you can no longer avoid the obvious: You need to be on social media. This statement may sound evident to you, reader of this blog. But many companies are still not up-to-date. As part of a project we are analysing the internet visibility of the city of Cannes in France. They are nowhere to be seen on Facebook, Twitter and haven’t even posted a promotional video on Youtube!

Internet, smartphones, applications, and social media are growing fast, and if you haven’t caught the train, then this video may make you start running!

Karen Powell and Tiphaine Boucher

Tourism Australia collaborates with YouTube for new marketing campaign

By Caroline Oudin and Loumpheany Preap

This article entitled “Tourism Australia collaborates with YouTube for new marketing campaign” was written by Mary Jones and it was published on October 15^th 2010 on canadaupdates.com, which is a website that initially informs people about the immigration process in the country. The article deals with a new digital tourism marketing campaign between Tourism Australia and Youtube.

In this article, IT contributes to tourism because it enables the promotion of Australia. Indeed, according to Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia, Youtube is a marketing tool to broadcast a new vision of Australia. Thanks to the video, the sound and creativity, the marketing campaign is more efficient and will have more impact on the web users. Tourism Australia decided to create a new tourism marketing campaign, focused on digital support. This initiative led the DMO to a partnership with Youtube, offering the opportunity to develop social media marketing via videos.

The initial aim of such collaboration is to show Australia as the top exciting destination to visit in the world, focusing on one of the most symbolic structure of the country (Sydney Opera House) as a key point for activities. Also, the DMO is able to show potential consumers the attracting experiences available on site (music, culture, etc.). More significantly, this collaboration with Youtube was useful in order to bring the Youtube Symphony Orchestra 2011 to Australia. Indeed, it not only enabled musicians to audition but it also implied million of views through the social media. This partnership is a clear opportunity for Tourism Australia to expand its online presence, even if a study conducted by travel social network WAYNE revealed that in 2010 Tourism Australia is the most popular national DMO in social media (http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/news/647-tourism-australia-is-the-most-popular-national-dmo-in-social-media).

The relevancy of this article clearly lays in the fact that it proves, once more, the usefulness of the social media. Youtube, in particular, is one of the top social media innovations, being strategically used by tourism industries such as hotel chains or DMOs. Wondering why companies opt for such a tool, it is to understand this choice. Indeed, broadcasting on Youtube is easy and quicker than other technological devices. A video catches more attention than a simple marketing campaign on the TV. On Youtube, the online user will look for the video by typing on the search bar tool whereas on TV, the marketing campaign won’t have the same effect because other advertisement will be diffused at the same time. Moreover we can guess that the cost of broadcasting on Youtube is cheaper than advertising on TV channels and it reaches more target audiences.

As far as we are concerned, we believe that this is an interesting topic, as the use of social media as a marketing tool is a growing phenomenon.

Source: picture from our personal files