Switzerland Tourism

The Objective

The national marketing organisation Switzerland Tourism exists to do just as you might expect – hype up its incredible country. Already nailing organic engagement on TikTok with a six-month old Business Account, Switzerland Tourism felt it time to take the next step on its TikTok adventure by running paid campaigns. It aimed to run ads and develop a deeper understanding of its audience, as well as boosting brand awareness in Switzerland.

The Solution

Switzerland Tourism spent the first six months of its Business Account building its following entirely organically, focusing on a test-and-learn strategy, to thoroughly understand how TikTok works. 84 out of 94 posts (as of February 2021) were played out purely organically and achieved an average engagement of around 6500 likes per video. Switzerland Tourism is the frontrunner in terms of purely organic content compared to other national destination management organisations (DMOs) in Europe. An established community laps up its hashtags: #INeedSwitzerland and #inLOVEwithSWITZERLAND. Ads were a natural next step, because paid campaigns would mean it could directly target a younger age group to learn more about them.

Business Accounts give the brands the power to connect with its audience on a deeper level – it gives them an official profile to build brand presence and content, and a place their fans can call home. Real-time metrics and follower insights deliver powerful data that can steer objectives. And, crucially, it paves the way for creating highly-targeted paid campaigns all throughout the year.

Doubling down on its popular hashtag #INeedSwitzerland, Switzerland Tourism ran its first ever TopView ad showing a three-way split screen of dramatic scenery and nature. Spurred on by this campaign’s success, it then ran three more seasonal TopView campaigns: a summer experience tips ad, summer in the city ad and funny autumn-themed ad. All four aimed to supercharge awareness and drive engagement, taking inspiration from its organic activity and only running content that would inspire brand love natively in the feeds. After all, this is what this profile does best.

The Results

In just 12 months, Switzerland Tourism  has driven huge momentum, with over 700,000 likes across all its posts and a whopping 35.5 million hashtag mentions. Most of this was organic, with some videos going viral without so much as a penny behind them. Its TopView campaigns have achieved an average of 20% engagement rates, which is remarkably high and shows the power of a brand putting out brilliant content on TikTok.

Natalie Schönbächler, Social Media Manager at Switzerland Tourism, said, “Since May 2020, we have been working with four Swiss content creators who fully understand our target group on TikTok and show the most interesting places around Switzerland in their very own style – urban, full of action, with a good sense of humour or by taking up viral challenges.

“We regard TikTok as an important piece in our marketing mix. With the platform we can engage with an interesting target group and build relevant awareness for Switzerland,” added Dominic Stöcklin, Head of Social Media.