Entered by Go Vilnius

Only 5% of Western Europeans know where Vilnius is, which is a problem no tourist destination wants, especially with neighbours sharing the same continent.

Given the circumstances, the challenge was to engage with potential visitors so that they would think of Vilnius when making future travel plans. The team had already launched a successful campaign with the slogan, “Vilnius: Amazing wherever you think it is,” which made use of the city’s obscurity as a tool to catch the attention of target audiences.

With Christmas around the corner, the team used the festive season as an opportunity to once again raise awareness of the city.

The primary goal was to inspire people to become curious about Vilnius and put a city they may have barely heard of on
their radar. The main success indicator would be our campaign’s total reach. The team weren’t necessarily looking to increase the number of tourists coming to Vilnius in the short term, because COVID-19 restrictions were very strict for travellers at the time (October-December 2021). Instead, they wanted to raise awareness throughout the winter so that people would have Vilnius in their minds when they could start travelling again. UK and Germany were the primary target audiences. Both markets have excellent air and other travel connections to Vilnius with growing numbers of tourists, so the potential to grow both awareness and tourist numbers was attractive.

Due to a limited budget, channels of communication were purely digital, starting with an online video, followed by a Spotify audio recording. Both executions took audiences to a web page where they could find the main reasons to visit Vilnius. It was expected that reach would be grown organically by catching the attention of the media, who would share the campaigns on their own channels.

To implement the strategy, the team decided to create an official Vilnius Christmas Carol, with lyrics inspired by all the
wrong answers that people from the target countries gave when asked where Vilnius is located. The team needed to use a well-known Christmas carol that people would recognise immediately but then realise that the lyrics weren’t what they would expect.

The well-known local choir, Jauna Muzika, was invited to perform the song, and it was recorded and filmed it live in the
Church of St. Francis of Assisi, one of Vilnius’ main landmarks. Online video and audio were recorded, both under the slogan “Christmas in Vilnius: Amazing wherever you think it is.”

Both led audiences to the whereisvilnius.com web page, which was adapted for the Christmas season with an illustration by digital artist Tomas Panavas. The website invites visitors to play a game where they are challenged to locate Vilnius on a map of the world, and then explains why they should spend Christmas in the city.

The campaign reached more than 80 million people and caught the attention of many publications, including four from
UK (inc.The Mirror) and four from Germany (inc. Bold Magazine). The plan is to continue the fight for awareness around the world, pushing the “Vilnius: Amazing wherever you think it is” concept and making it clear that the small city has a big voice and a strong personality, but with the ability to laugh at itself when needed!