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Sabbatical Project takes off

Campaign for a one-month, all-expenses paid trip to Whistler goes viral
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time off The Whistler Sabbatical Project is offering two golden tickets to enjoy all of Whistler for a month. Photo BY eric bergertourism whistler

It was the little Internet marketing and social networking campaign that could.

At last count, more than 65,000 people have visited the Whistler Sabbatical Project's website at http://wouldyoudoit.whistler.com. The Facebook page at "Go Whistler" has over 12,000 "likes," and is growing. And the number of entries into the competition — where the first prize is an all-expenses trip to Whistler for one month, plus a salary — was closing in on 10,000.

More importantly, the story Whistler Sabbatical Project has been picked up across a wide variety of media, bringing global exposure to the resort in a new way.

Kirsten Homeniuk, senior manager of marketing services at Tourism Whistler, wouldn't say they were surprised by the success of the campaign, but agreed that it has exceeded their expectations in a lot of different ways — including how much it's been embraced by Tourism Whistler members and the community as a whole.

"From my perspective, and from all of Tourism Whistler, we certainly strived for an integrated campaign where everybody is singing the same tune and working collectively together, and I feel that no campaign to date has been able to do that like this one," she said.

The Whistler Sabbatical Project was launched back in October and closes on Jan. 31, 2012. A group of 10 randomly selected finalists will be drawn from Feb. 1 to Feb. 10, and will have to write a short essay of 250 words or less to describe what winning the Whistler Sabbatical Project would mean to them. A grand-prize winner will be announced on Feb. 13 and the winner will have from Mar. 1 to Apr. 30 to claim their prize. The prize?

A round-trip ticket for two to Vancouver and ground transportation by private limousine to Whistler. One month of accommodation in a fully furnished home chosen by Tourism Whistler. Two one-month Whistler Blackcomb ski passes, two one-month bus passes, two pairs of K2 skis, with poles, bindings, boots and travel case, and one month's salary for the grand-prize winner up to $4,200. The winner will also receive up to 18 "Explore Your Options" activities provided by Tourism Whistler members, ranging from dinners to tours.

The contest is open to anyone in Canada, the U.S., Australia and the U.K.

The cost of the campaign has not been tallied yet, nor has the value of the exposure that the contest has generated for the resort. Homeniuk said the numbers are being tallied, but expects the value to be significant.

The idea of running a contest as the resort's main promotion for the season is a bit different for Tourism Whistler, but they wanted to do something that would resonate with its target market.

"The concept was developed with our creative agency, which is Origin Design and Communications in Whistler," said Homeniuk. "We started to work on our winter strategy with them, and there were some key consumer insights that we honed in on, some state of the union-type things. They've found that our customers are all time-starved, that they're busy, they're bogged down by work commitments, family commitments, financial responsibilities and everyday life... and that the idea of being unhurried is unknown to most of us in that target audience. This was about taking time and getting back to roots and connecting with something you're passionate about.

"From that the idea of a sabbatical was born, to strip away those barriers. You don't have to worry about finances or about work."

The contest is central to the campaign, but the entire package — which includes television ads in Canada and Internet advertising in target countries — is also about drawing exposure to the resort at the same time. To that end, Tourism Whistler hired local award winning photographer Jordan Manly to take pictures of the resort last season, luckily booking him for a window where the resort received record-breaking snow. As well, part of the contest means putting together videos for every one of the 18 "Explore Your Options" activities, which expands the exposure to include other resort partners.

"We have new content coming out every week, we've sent out toolkits to our members, we're putting out press releases every week — we have all this new content to push," she said.

While Tourism Whistler has been active on the social networking front for years, the campaign has been a valuable learning experience because of the level of integration between different types of media and the fact that every single department is involved. One of the biggest challenges is producing the videos, something that Homeniuk said will help Tourism Whistler going forward.

"That's been a fair amount of work for us, and there's a fair amount of production value going into the videos," she said.

"It means working with our membership to get ideas and then fine-tuning those ideas into something that fits into the campaign concept. And we work with that member to interview the members and talk about their passion, and tell them how they can share it with their customers.

"It's really taken a lot of teamwork, I really can't stress that enough. It's huge, the entire team — the entire community — is behind this project, and that's what feels so good about it and makes me really proud."

Homeniuk does not know what the future is for this type of contest or campaign, but said members are already asking for a summer version. But while future campaigns will likely be different, the model is here to stay.

"Engaging people directly will continue to be a focus," she said.

"We've built a really strong platform... and I really think we'll continue with things that allows us to work together with our memberships, and make it easy for the entire community to get behind to promote Whistler to the world."