New Kerala Tourism campaign fails in multiple ways

The latest Kerala Tourism Ad campaign - "Your Moment is Waiting" - is evoking mixed responses from the ad fraternity. As Gopinath Menon said in Business Line - "It is tangentially different from all that has been done on Kerala Tourism till now. There are two kinds of mindsets that visit Kerala: There is a ‘traveller' mindset and a ‘tourist' mindset. The traveller is the intelligent guy, the explorer instincts are strong and the journey is as important as the destination. The other one, with the tourist mindset, is the LTC traveller, the pre-decided one. This communication is clearly talking to the traveller mindset." and adds "if you look at the thousands visiting Kerala every year, the traveller mindset is unlikely to fall into the majority."

This campaign is predominantly targeting foreign visitors. But what do they come for? It is for the unique Kerala experience and the ad would disappoint them for sure. Their experience in Kerala is bound to be different from what is shown except for visitors coming with 'traveller mindset'. In 2009, Kerala got over 7 lakh foreign visitors and over 70 lakh domestic tourists. It is felt by the industry and public in Kerala that most of them are here with a 'tourist mindset'.

The campaign's similarity with Mexico Tourism ad is quite astonishing. It is tough to believe that such blatant similarity is by accident. Exchange4Media has report about this. Probably it is time to start working on the next campaign. 

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