The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2010–2011
Iceland makes its people the campaign — Inspired by Iceland revives tourism in 10 weeks
After Eyjafjallajökull grounded tourism, Iceland had 318,000 residents tell their own stories for an hour — visitors beat forecasts by 27%.
Promote Iceland
What it had to solve
In April 2010 Eyjafjallajökull erupted, ash clouds grounded flights across Europe, and negative coverage left Iceland facing a projected £180m tourism shortfall. The government and agency The Brooklyn Brothers had a £2m budget and a nation of just 318,000 people.
How it works
When Eyjafjallajökull erupted in April 2010, the ash cloud that shut down European airspace also shut down Iceland's tourism: bookings collapsed and the country faced a projected £180 million revenue shortfall. Negative coverage painted the whole island as dangerous, even though the ash affected only a small area.
The Icelandic government and its agency The Brooklyn Brothers had a budget of just £2 million — too little for a conventional travel campaign. So they inverted the idea: instead of telling the world Iceland was safe, they asked 318,000 Icelanders to tell the world what they loved about their country. On 2 June 2010 the whole nation stopped for 'Iceland Hour', posting stories and e-cards online for one hour, backed by viral films featuring Björk, Damon Albarn and Stephen Fry, live webcams and Facebook pages.
The public became the campaign: within two weeks more than 85% of Icelanders were aware of it, and within six weeks over half the population had contributed a story. The earned content was watched and shared — 45,000+ Facebook fans, 2 million stories spread, and 60 million views of live webcams between June and August.
The commercial result was unusually measurable: within ten weeks visitor numbers were up 27% against forecasts, Q1 2011 brought Iceland's highest-ever tourist numbers, and the campaign was credited with 73,000 additional European visitors worth about £127 million against the £2 million spend — a 62.7:1 short-term ROMI.
Why it lands
- A nation's own citizens are more credible than an official ad promising safety.
- Iceland Hour turned a campaign into a one-off event the world wanted to watch.
- Every participating resident became a distribution channel, multiplying the £2m budget.
- Stories carried emotion and specificity instead of defensive reassurances.
- It measured results commercially (ROMI 62.7:1), not just in awareness.
What it did
Within 2 weeks 85% of Icelanders knew the campaign; within 6 weeks over half had contributed stories. Visitors beat forecasts by 27% within 10 weeks, Q1 2011 set Iceland's highest-ever tourist numbers, and the campaign was credited with 73,000 extra European visitors worth about £127m on a £2m budget — a 62.7:1 ROMI.
What you can take
When trust collapses, don't add more official messages — hand the platform to the people with credibility; their stories outperformed ads, and participation itself became the media.
Since then
In September 2011 'Inspired by Iceland' won the Grand Prix at the European Effectiveness Awards, where judges called it one of the only effectiveness papers to offer a model of how social media works in a commercial environment; The Brooklyn Brothers was named Agency of the Year. The platform outlived the crisis — Iceland kept using 'Inspired by Iceland' as its long-running tourism brand, and the case became a textbook example of a nation using its own people as media.
Sources
- Iceland Hour to inspire the world
- Effies show how adland is adapting to straitened times
- Inspired by Iceland (case study text, Promote Iceland's Epica/Effie entry)
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