Holy Squirrel! Who would have thought that an innocent tourist photo "crashed" by a squirrel, inevitable dubbed the Crashing Banff Squirrel, would create one of the most successful and viral social media campaigns in Canada?
Officials from Banff Lake Louise Tourism released the stats from the campaign that was part of the efforts of Arcade Consulting, BLLT's quick thinking social media agency: 82 million impressions, media coverage in more than 70 countries, including coverage on leading blogs including CNBC's Funny Business, National Geographic Traveler, Canada.com, the Twitter Blog, and many others.
"The challenge wasn't to make the Banff Squirrel become more 'viral'", said Steve Wright, president of Arcade Consulting. "The real task was to harness the momentum of the Squirrel to direct attention back to Banff as a tourism destination."
How did it work exactly? Within hours, the folks at Banff tourism created a promotiona YouTube video, added an @Banff_Squirrel on Twitter, created a search engine marketing campaign based on the squirrel keyword, and a Banff Crasher Squirrel Facebook page. Leveraging this and the efforts of developers who independently created applications helped drive traffic back to Banff as a tourism destination. While the squirrel was the vehicle, the driver was the destination, Banff and Lake Louise.
According to the press release,
"Banff Crasher Squirrel: The Movie" has been viewed more than 35,000 times, placing it among the most popular travel videos for the week and the @Banff_Squirrel on Twitter has attracted more than 1,000 followers.
Way to go squirrel.
Victoria Revay
Like many, freelance journalist, Victoria Revay is ambitious and adventurous by nature. Since leaving television news, Victoria has worked for Nowpublic.com, she has been published in Western Living Magazine, Blackbook Magazine’s Jet Set Travel Guide, Western Living Condo and Travelmuse.com, and she’s hosted an online entertainment show. She...[more]
