UK Tourism Blitz’s Bermuda-Pink Bus
The Bermuda Department of Tourism is rolling out a 12 month campaign, created by Out of Home International, in London, to promote the island.
The campaign by Out of Home International, appointed by the department’s UK based consumer and trade PR agency, Publicasity, includes a Bermuda-pink London Bus, train passenger panels promoting the island and a fleet of fully branded taxis targeting business commuters, leisure and shopping audiences in Greater London.
William Griffith, Bermuda’s director of tourism, said: “Bermuda is a best in class luxury destination and we are excited to be reminding the UK of all it has to offer. We will be targeting international business, leisure and the group incentive markets.”
Promoting the fact that Bermuda is “Closer than you think”, the campaign aims to remind the public that it is “Only seven hours from London Gatwick.”
Green shorts!? To be expected I suppose.
I’m not sure that “closer than you think” and “feel the love” are the best that we can do. You can get to the Mediterranean faster. And some of our visitors when they step off the plane are grilled by our immigration and customs officers who cop an attitude and I don’t think they are “feeling the love”. Having gang violence in the news all the time is not feeling the love either.
bermudas too boring to be tryna do stuff like that. people come expecting alot and then get disappointed. if anything promote may 24 and cup match thats when its the miost fun stuff going on.
Why is everyone always so quick to say my country is boring? If you are Bermudian of course you are going to find it boring! Same thing, same people, different day. But for tourist…. they love it! Especially the people out here in the UK. I’ve been out here (London) for 2 years and the people I know that have visited enjoy it because of the beautiful peaceful beaches and the scenery around.
There are different types of categories for countries to be listed in. For instance Florida being one of the top for family vacations thanks to all the amusement parks. Bermuda however is more of a getaway, place for retired couples to chill, honeymoons and relaxation.
Yes May 24 and Cup Match are lovely events for tourist to enjoy, but they are more interested in the beaches. So government needs to make the beaches better (PUT A DAMN BAR ON A FEW!)
Fact!!!!!
I agree. We should be promoting those days like other countries promote their Carnavals and other such things and give the seat sales and hotel discount rates at those time periods. We can do better than what we are doing at present.
Bermuda has ALOT to offer if you get off the couch…However Bermuda can do a whole lot more …Beauty alone isnt going to cut it…which is why i dumped my last girlfriend.
Free things: Cliff Jumping, “people” watching on the beach, snorkeling, free diving, rock climbing, camping, mtn biking (provided u have a bike), Sittin off and enjoying life, visiting St Georges/dockyard (Yawn).
Non Free things: Drinking (anywhere), scuba diving, boating/watersports, drinking, parasailing, jet skiing, fishing, over priced shopping, more drinking, dolphin quest (over priced), golf (over priced), tour boar (fantasy, reef explorer, rising sun etc.), Horseback riding, Horse and carriage ride (boring), Party bus (amazing)….
Things Bermuda Needs: Sky diving, Zip line course, Frisbee golf course (under $3000 to build…put at arboretum, or some other park and make it free since there is NO maintenance), mountain bike trails and mountain bike rental (rent bike, they can ride south shore or wherever is a good track, then pick up in van and bring bike and person back to start), Organized nights out for hotel guests from hotels (sync with bar/club), BRING BACK THE DARK AND STORMY TRAIL!, kayak rentals at horseshoe, small sailboat rentals at horseshoe, Bungee Jumping at st. George’s or dockyard directly insight of the cruise ship into the water, day time beach entertainment (sittin at the beach is cool and all but watching people try to dance is priceless and will make for good memories by visiting and local people), More live music events (im tired of hearing dj’s play the same song over and over, but at the same time big up the dj’s)…..so many more things that just arent happening that should….Please somebody hop on it and make bermuda a FUN place to visit.
the best way to advertise is word of mouth…people need to be talking about how amazing their vacation was to get people interested in coming, and face it, no one is going to go home bragging that they went and visited the small town of st. georges or dockyard….but! if you had something down there like Bungee jumping, people would be like “holy S**T dockyard was awesome, got tapped and had a grease down frog and onion, then went bungee jumpin and eurped! its cool though, went round country squire afterwards and got another grease and more tapped…Bermy is wicked!”
great ideas @ Bermy youth, too bad nobody in Tourism is listening to you.
i dont think government listens to anyone….which is why we need a tourism authority
Bus sponsorship? Really? Not exactly prime ABC123 designated readership that will have the available spends to come to Bermuda on public transport……and it’s running around the outskirts of south London…..
Maybe a better marketing campaign would have worked. Something targetted toward the people you want to reach?
But then again, there are very public problems with crime, drugs and violence against tourists that need to be dealt with first. Along with its reputation for overcharging for what is delivered in any public service, and the idea that tourists are only on Bermuda for businesses to remove as much of their hard-earned cash as possible while they are there.
A large pink bus won’t make all of that go away. Good luck Minister – at least you tried with the marketing campaign – pity your colleagues won’t deal with the rest.
They’re wasting our money in that market, IMO. I doubt that we’d get a good return on our investment (ROI), the numbers will always be low.
Spend tourism ad budget where our Primary Market is: the Gateway cities of the Atlantic Northeast. That’s where we’ll get a good ROI.
Whts wrong with South London?? Thats where im from, and i can tell you for a fact Croydon is lovely at night, its usually ablaze!! lol
Feel the Love…..really?
More like feel the purse snatchings, or feel the hatred towards the devil colonialists and foreigners in general, or feel the pain of no transportation because your bus/ferry driver got fired for drinking and generally doing what they want, or feel attitude from your $45 taxi driver, and staff in overpriced hotels.
That slogan needs to change because it was part of Ewart’s smoke and mirrors campaign.
I hope the bus is a number 172 or 171….South London Route home
The cliff jumping video BurntHouse Productions and Shreddy Times produced has 568,657 views as of today…That is about 3,842 views a day since day one 4 months ago and keeps growing.
Maybe tourism should talk to them about advertising since they already have a huge international following and are BERMUDIAN. Image what next years video would look like and how many more views they would get if they had support from government! Im sure it would cost considerably less previous and current marketing schemes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGuBmyiq70g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGh2M7SethU
“Bermuda is closer than you think” to which my British family members quickly replied “Bermuda is more expensive than you think!”
Come on folks! This is an excellent way of promoting Bermuda and is in keeping with our image. I’m all for criticizing Government or the Department of Tourism when they get things wrong – but I like this campaign. Don’t know how much it costs but it will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people who pass through London. Kudos to the campaign organizers.
Let’s go with this. After all, it worked so well when they tried it in Toronto (air arrivals decreased). And the pink taxi bit in London had similar results since arrivals from UK actually decreased.
But why not keep repeating things that didn’t work the first time?
It was quite an eyecatcher in Toronto. I wonder how much the paint job cost?
Don’t think it’s a paint job – just vinyl sheets that can be peeled off. But I don’t think anyone in Toronto really paid any attention – I think I was one of the few people that noticed (and only because the gov’t was making such a big deal of it).
Well,I think the Bermuda-Pink London Bus is lovely! And if the Out of Home International campaign really wants to be seen in the UK, please may I sugest that the bus participates in the Pink Car Rally, in August, which will travel the length of Britain… from John O’Groats to Land’s End. Find us on Facebook