The Hindu Business Line : Tales of a traveller

"The ads narrate transformational experiences of how Kerala touches the lives of travellers." _ Swarup B. R., Creative Director, Stark Communications

Most people enjoy a good story. The judges of the Das Goldene Stadttor (The Golden City Gate) awards at ITB Berlin certainly think so. For this year, they awarded a Das Goldene Stadttor for the best print advertising campaign of the year to Kerala Tourism's new ad campaign that narrates stories of travellers whose lives have been transformed by a holiday in Kerala.

This is the second year in succession that Kerala Tourism is winning an award in the competition, often referred to as the "travel industry's Oscars." Held as part of ITB Berlin, the annual international travel and tourism exhibition, the Das Goldene Stadttor awards honour tourism-related films and advertisements.

While Kerala Tourism won the award for the best tourism commercial last year, this year it won the first award in the newly created print campaign category, says Venu V., Secretary (Tourism), Government of Kerala. "This campaign's approach is about a destination getting more sophisticated," he explains, and adds that Kerala Tourism has taken different approaches to advertising in the past.

Crafted by the Kerala-based Stark Communications, the five ads in the campaign show how Kerala reaches out to visitors and changes their lives for the better. Says Swarup B. R., Creative Director, Stark Communications: "The ads narrate transformational experiences of how Kerala touches the lives of travellers." No other place has ever talked about how the destination has influenced people, he claims.

Every year, Stark Communications talks to over 1,000 travellers in Kerala and many fascinating stories emerge during this process. Five of these stories have been chosen for the current campaign. Nothing works as well as a story told, says Swarup.

Familiar Kerala-related themes such as ayurveda and Kathakali appear in the advertisements. But the focus is more on how they changed visitors' lives and not so much on the branch of medicine or the dance form. For instance, one ad tells the story of how ayurvedic treatments cured Serefa Malamati from Greece of a five-year-old backache while another tells the story of Corinne Mathou from France who fell in love with Kathakali and lived in Kerala for nine years to learn this art form.

Another ad tells the story of John Foreman and Nicola Pauling from the UK, who searched the world for the most beautiful place on earth to get married in and chose Kerala. The fourth ad is on Dianne Jenett from the US who chose to do her PhD thesis on the Attukal Pongala temple festival in Kerala and travelled several times to Thiruvananthapuram and actually participated in the temple festival.

The final story in the campaign is that of Marit Struitnburg and her husband who were so touched by Kerala and its people that they gifted their taxi driver a car before returning home. All the ads capture the intangible magic of Kerala, believes Swarup.

Venu of Kerala Tourism thinks the ads appeal to both repeat and prospective visitors. For the repeat visitor, they strike a chord and help revive happy memories of Kerala, while they give a prospective visitor a glimpse of what Kerala has to offer, he says.

The campaign in English has been running in Indian and international publications for the past couple of months, and is set to be launched in languages such as French and German. While the media plan for the next few months is now being finalised, Venu says it will include a strong Internet component. Kerala Tourism has always had a strong presence on the Internet and this campaign too will continue that tradition, he adds.

Meanwhile, the interactive component of the campaign has been launched on Kerala Tourism's Web site (www.keralatourism.org) . Visitors to the site are invited to register and tell their stories about Kerala, and possibly win a holiday in the State. Over 200 people have already registered on the site and are telling their stories.

This approach will give Kerala Tourism a creative database of stories it can use for further campaigns, says Venu. "I see a book and other products emerging from these experiences," he adds. Swarup of Stark says the second phase of the campaign could have stories from people across India on how holidays in Kerala have transformed their lives.

The current campaign, Venu believes, does what a destination like Kerala needs to do. "Experiential campaigns will continue as they help create a space for Kerala and open a door to a new level."

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