Tourism Ireland spent €630,000 on promoting Shannon Airport as gateway to Wild Atlantic Way

Tourism Ireland spent more than €630,000 on a campaign highlighting Shannon Airport as the gateway to the Wild Atlantic Way, with matching funding of $100,000 (€92,357) put forward by United Airlines as part of the marketing initiative.

The tourism promotion agency paid more than €84,000 for production of a 30-second video featuring renowned Irish photographer Conor Vaughan providing commentary on landscapes along the western coastal route, according to records released under Freedom of Information (FOI).

A design brief for the project said it needed to “feel like a personal recommendation from someone, even if we don’t see them”. It said it should be “visually striking”, adaptable for use in foreign language markets, and that it might work if it felt as if you were looking as “someone’s holiday snaps”.

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A financial overview of the campaign brief said a €84,505 spend would cover the cost of video production, the photographer, and voiceover, although a breakdown of those costs was not supplied under FOI.

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A separate brief on the marketing plan said it should clearly identify the air route into Shannon as the main access point and gateway for the Wild Atlantic Way. It said it should be aimed at a “culturally curious” audience of all ages between 25 and 75 and with a priority focus on the cities of New York, Boston, and Chicago at first.

The marketing brief said: “This campaign can only remain live if the Shannon [air] routes are available – this will be running during peak season, but if routes are pulled [or] paused we will need to make amendments to plans if [and] when necessary.”

In a breakdown of overall costs, Tourism Ireland said that it had spent about €450,000 on advertising for the campaign and nearly €5,000 on what were described as “localisation costs” for the US market.

The tourism agency also put forward more than €90,000 for a joint campaign with United Airlines, which was matched by the airline and included a two-page feature in its in-flight magazine, video ads, and social media activity. In an information note, Tourism Ireland said the campaign had by the end of July delivered 51 million impressions, which had led to about 180,000 referrals to third-party businesses.

The agency said a further wave of activity was planned in September to help drive autumn business to the Wild Atlantic Way, and to capitalise on international flights into Shannon that will finish for the year at the end of October.

“Final results will be confirmed when a post-campaign analysis is completed in August,” the information note said. The video part of the campaign was being repurposed for use in other markets including Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, it added.