Macau Tourist Information Bureau Print Advertising

Macau Tourist Information Bureau's campaign to increase visitor arrivals kicked off with the Launch Phase which centred on generating greater awareness of Macau's attractions besides its casinos, which are already well known in the region. Macau has a rich heritage that would add to the reasons for making a visit more rewarding, especially for family tours that offer something for everyone.

LAUNCH PHASE

For starters we sketched out a campaign that offered a peek into the past. This will cover sightseeing, street food and gourmet dining, shopping, cultural pursuits and of course the pièce de résistance – racing and betting.

The concepts were generally well received and we proceeded to flesh them out.

As we were at this juncture transitioning into the digital era our visuals were a hybrid of hand-drawn and computer-generated artworks.

The concepts evolved into a choice between "A peek into the past!" and "You can bet on it!"

"A peek into the past!" won the day, but "You can bet on it!" was not to be abandoned. It would instead be unleashed in the next phase of the campaign.

With the objectives firmly defined we proceeded to the final visuals as follows, each touching on a tourist draw.

After further deliberation of the copy it was decided that we would use a tick boxes format to get the points across more vividly and forcefully instead of the tried and tested run-on typesetting style.

The finished artworks were published in major English and Chinese language newspapers.

FOLLOW UP PHASE

The following year smaller ads were used to boost momentum to keep the campaign on track. This time the tag line "You can bet on it!" did the parting shot.

As mentioned earlier the "A Peak into the Past" proposal was not canned but later released as magazine ads but with the theme modified to emphasise Macau as "The City of Culture."

A NEW DIRECTION

Having run the campaign for two years it was time for us to refresh the ads and inject new vitality into the message. We proposed a new take on the graphics and copywriting under the theme "a taste of Europe in the heart of Asia."

The concepts resonated with our client and after much mulling over the direction of the theme we moved from "Europe in the the heart of Asia" to a choice between "Make it Macau again!" or "World in transition."

In the interim the "Europe" theme was used for magazine advertising supplanting "The City of Culture," and headlined "The European City of the East."

After staying on the back burner for some months the campaign was reactivated with a request for another new look at the design. We proposed using the theme of post cards in a sort of "Wish you were here!" idea to drum up new wanderlust in the travelling public especially among the first time visitors who had Macau on their wish list after becoming aware by word of mouth and through movies and television. Each postcard is accompanied by a Polaroid shot to illustrate the featured theme.