When it comes to Japan, young Aussie travellers were only familiar with neon-lit cities and postcard attractions. But there is actually a whole other side to Japan. A side of wild regions with endless wonder waiting to be discovered. We were tasked to create a social media campaign that would raise awareness about regional Japan, make people rethink about what a holiday in Japan could look like, and drive them to venture off the beaten path and into Unseen Japan.
Our target audience craves individuality. They’re also digitally savvy and highly inquisitive. Using this insight, we set out to create a digital experience that would allow them to explore and plan personalised trips to regional Japan that would be completely unique from their peers, providing them with cultural immersion and social kudos.
To amplify awareness for the regions of Setouchi, Tohoku, Hokkaido and Kyushu, we enlisted four prominent social media influencers. They were tasked to showcase the region’s sights and attractions with rich photo and video content on Instagram. The influencers also promoted our campaign hashtag #unseenjapan.
To harness our rich source of inspirational content, we set up a campaign page that featured an interactive map of Japan. This coincided with our influencer trips to regional Japan. As the influencers posted what they discovered on Instagram, this also appeared on our map in real time, giving users a chance to follow in their footsteps and explore the four regions of Japan. Each piece of content was clickable and led back to its corresponding Instagram post.
To further spark engagement, we created a unique Instagram competition where users could enter by simply commenting on any Instagram post from the map with ‘Add to #myunseenjapan’. Our winner picked up 2x return flights to Japan to discover the beauty of regional Japan in person.
Instagram hashtag technology was also used in an innovative way to help users create their own dream Japan travel itinerary. More than just a competition entry, leaving the comment ‘Add to #myunseenjapan’ also added that experience to an Unseen Japan bucket list that users could download for their next Japanese holiday.
