Harris is being promoted as an attractive holiday destination across the Atlantic as part of a three month campaign run by VisitScotland.
The campaign, ‘Win a Scottish Island’, which offers one lucky entrant an expenses-paid luxury holiday for four on Harris, was first aired to Canadians at the ‘Scotland in Toronto’ event in March and New Yorkers during ‘Scotland Week’ the following week.
Since then, an extensive marketing programme involving email blasts and advertising in media such as the New York Times and Toronto Star, has backed up the overseas activity.
Sites advertising the competition in America and Canada can be viewed at www.winascottishisland.com and www.winascottishisland.ca.
Aoife Desmond, VisitScotland’s Consumer Marketing Manager for North America, explains: “Our win a Scottish island promotion reached over 40m consumers in the US and Canada and resulted in just under 60,000 web visits and 40,000 entries with a month still to run. At our events in New York and Toronto, consumers really engaged with the promotion which showcased various aspects of life on Harris, from tweed making to Gaelic culture. We received huge support from local businesses, such as Black Sheep House and Kilda Cruises, who enabled us to create a true once-in-a-lifetime, money-can’t-buy prize.”
Alan Bain of Harris Tweed Textiles (USA), Inc., a partner in the campaign, was also in New York with the VisitScotland team, helping to promote the island to a global audience.
He comments: “As part of Scotland Week, we sponsored a student fashion show at the Fashion Institute of Technology, a leading U.S. fashion school. The show’s aim was to “Reinvent Tweed”, to make it modern and accessible. Harris Tweed is born of tradition and authenticity, however we wanted to bring it firmly into the twenty-first century. Harris Tweed is manufactured on the Isle of Lewis - so enabling the winning designer to visit and explore the area gives them a sense of history and an appreciation of the whole manufacturing process behind one of Scotland’s iconic brands.”
An experimental new media initiative saw the island message pushed to several thousand consumers via Bluetooth in New York. With a full month of the campaign still to run, the results to date have been impressive, as Aoife continues: “This has been our best performing prize draw in North America so far. Asking consumers to choose from a range of activities has also enabled us to increase interaction with the promotion and as a result 40,000 North Americans have been encouraged to consider Harris as the idyllic, unspoiled destination it is.”
The competition winners will arrive in Harris on 13 September and be met by a local councillor who will present them with the ‘keys’ to the island. Over the course of their five day trip they will stay at the Black Sheep House, and choose from an array of activities including a whisky master class and gourmet meal at Scarista House, tweed making at Luskentyre Tweed, golfing & lifetime membership at Harris golf club and a painting lesson with Skoon Art Café’s resident artist Andrew John Craig.
