The strategic approach for the Colours of Türkiye campaign was rooted in the insight that modern travellers seek more than just destinations — they crave meaningful experiences that immerse them in diverse cultures, history, and landscapes. GWI reports that 59% of the BBC Travel audience likes to explore the world to have new experiences. Booking.com’s 2024 travel predictions report stated that travellers crave the unknown, with 56% inclined to veer off the beaten path. By tapping into these growing global trends, the campaign framed Türkiye as a destination that satisfies the needs of both adventurous explorers and serene retreat-seekers, positioning it as a premier choice for today’s discerning travellers.

We chose colour as the theme for our campaign, to categorise and contextualise the full spectrum of what modern Türkiye has to offer visitors. Our “warm” story conveyed the tradition and culture of the country, and our “cool” story showcased modern life in all its diversity. All our stories were told through a protagonist, the photographer Ana Lui, to translate an authentic, first-person perspective on the country. Employing a photographer to explore was a strategic storytelling tactic. We wanted a genuine, human lens into the country’s story and to avoid a soulless listicle of landmarks that audiences could get from any travel source. This approach made our Türkiye narrative unique to BBC’s storytelling heritage through an authentic and journalistic approach that stays true to the BBC’s mission to inform, entertain and educate our audiences.

The Colours of Türkiye campaign was built around the power of multi-platform storytelling through a a branded film series and digital experience, each format offering a unique perspective on Türkiye’s diverse attractions. This campaign utilised the full breath of BBC platforms and audiences – which reaches 450 million households via BBC News TV and 126 million unique browsers on bbc.com per month. Our two films, hosted on a sponsored bbc.com hub, captured the breathtaking and cinematic scenery of Türkiye that only a medium like documentary-style film series could offer.

Having a real-life photographer take us round Türkiye allowed us to get under the skin of the country and lend a personable and emotional guide of the destination for our audiences. Through Ana’s eyes we highlight beauty, people and sacred moments. Ana also provided stunning stills to feature on the digital experience.

Our warm film was a nod to Turkish hospitality and culture, highlighting Istanbul’s street food, the tranquillity of the Hagia Sophia, the warmth of Izmir, Urla’s winemakers and love of produce. It also highlights the wonders of Ephesus and Cappadocia through local interactions.

The cool film pays respect to the more modern side of Türkiye, highlighting Bodrum, Pammakule and the nightlife of Istanbul. Through an airy and iridescent filter, Ana Lui shows a youthful energy through chefs in the city and wellness retreats at influential Scorpios hotel, with reference to the cooling waters of the country throughout sparkling shots throughout the film.

Our film series is housed in two dynamic digital executions, with Ana’s own original photography as the hero of the page. The articles, in line with the tone of the films, gave intimate and informative guides of the destinations mentioned in the film – but with the depth and detail that a digital page allows.

Our digital experiences gave readers a take-away itinerary they can use for their own trip to Türkiye. The design of the page incorporates an annotated written-font style – also used across the films – to add the illusion of a personal travelogue.

Across social, we harnessed the power of colour and invited our audience to choose cool or warm experiences. Using Ana’s incredible photography, we created hype around Türkiye’s lesser-known locations across Instagram reels, using paid and organic social. Using imagery from Ana made the posts feel premium and enlightening, enabling us to gain 16.7 million impressions across Instagram and Facebook.

The digital amplification included distributing StoryWorks-created custom traffic drivers throughout BBC.com, including the homepage and the BBC.com/travel vertical (two of the sites’ most visited pages) to maximise reach whilst targeting the client’s desired audience.

The traffic driver creatives, which were produced in-house, used the premium campaign photography whilst mirroring the look and feel of a piece of BBC editorial content so that audiences experience our stories in a seamless and native ecosystem befitting BBC editorial content. . Each ad format featured a call-to-action messaging, driving audiences to the branded content webpages.

The TV media plan was developed to strategically amplify the TV commercials during peak viewable hours on BBC News, with 60″ spots offering expanded coverage during time slots that typically have the highest audience engagement. The spots ran adjacent to contextually relevant programming such as lifestyle, travel and culture.

Central to our marketing efforts was promoting the series on Facebook and Instagram, which we chose as the most effective channels to extend the content’s reach to travel and tourism audiences, while driving them to view the full campaign on the BBC.com webpages.
The social media campaign leveraged the beautiful video and photography assets we created, including 30-second cuts of the films for optimal viewing on social platforms. The messaging was crafted to capture the attention of keen travellers, revealing the hidden gems of Türkiye that are waiting to be explored.

By reflecting Türkiye as a diverse destination, we were able to capture the hearts of the BBC Travel audience with authentic storytelling. We successfully showcased Türkiye through colour and achieved an impressive 5 million video views and overachieved against our internal engagement benchmarks across our global distribution campaign. The film series had an average completion rate of 40% — 10% higher than our average film completion rate.

Across social we achieved 16.7 million impressions, and nearly an equal amount on both films (2,145,284 warm video views, 2,663,689 cool video views).

Our audience stayed 92 seconds above our article benchmark (208 second average dwell time) proving our enticing imagery and copy engaged them in Türkiye. With 147,000 views across article pages, we were 28% above our BBC StoryWorks average benchmark, beating goals and spreading the joy of Türkiye.

Using BBC Studios’ own campaign measurement tool, The Science of Engagement (SoE), we learned that the campaign encouraged travel, drastically shifted brand perceptions and outperformed benchmarks across the board.

The SoE tool is a study of audience emotional reactions to film, using innovative facial tracking technology. The study showed that our campaign drove positive shifts in audience awareness, travel intent and perceptions of the country:

• 20% uplift in brand awareness
• 69% uplift in brand favourability
• 47% uplift in travel intent
• 32% uplift in implicit perceptions

In relation to other campaigns, this film series outperformed benchmarks across the board.

It was in the top 1% for the emotion “surprise”, had 8% higher than benchmark average attention, and over 10% higher than benchmark for “content enjoyment”.

These results prove that our campaign successfully shifted stereotypical notions of Türkiye as a travel destination, answering the brief with a stunning multi-platform execution. Ultimately, Colours of Türkiye showed that there is much more to Türkiye than meets the eye.

Türkiye Tourism – Colours of Türkiye