Commonwealth of Dominica
Dominica Film Challenge
Rebranding a hidden Caribbean travel destination to the adventure- and experience-seeking millennial market.
- Client
- Commonwealth of Dominica
- Engagement lead
- Michael Kraabel
- Shared experience: our team has worked on projects and led engagements for many clients over the years, and the lead named here brings that experience to every Voyager project.
- Services
- Campaign
- Film
The origins
The Dominica Film Challenge was devised for the Discover Dominica Authority with two aims: to raise awareness of the island and to refresh its image library with high-quality professional content for advertising and promotion.
The idea was to invite a select group of influential content creators to capture Dominica through their own lenses. It was not a standard marketing campaign. It was storytelling, showing the island through many creative perspectives for a global audience.
The event ran for two consecutive years and was described as an award-winning global phenomenon.
The insight
I traveled to Dominica on a solo adventure, representing Bolin Marketing, the North American agency of record for the Discover Dominica Tourism Authority. The island was an adventurer's paradise, very different from the leisure-and-beach Caribbean offer.
Dominica's marketing had been competing with more established Caribbean destinations on relaxation and beachside leisure. The island's real strength was its uncharted, rugged landscape. The Film Challenge was built to reintroduce Dominica as a destination for explorers and adventure seekers.
The challenge
The Dominica Film Challenge is an annual event that invites filmmakers, photographers and storytellers from around the world to capture the island's natural beauty and cultural richness.
Participants get a week to explore the island, known for lush rainforests, vibrant underwater environments and diverse local communities. They create short films, photo essays and other multimedia pieces about its landscapes, wildlife and cultural practices such as music, dance and traditional crafts. The challenge ends in a public showcase of the work.
Results
Over 62 million online impressions in the first year, and well over 100 million in two years.
Google searches up 49%. Organic search to the tourism website up 150%. Overall traffic to the tourism website up 5%. Social communities up 75%.
Follow-on feature stories ran in the Wall Street Journal, Backpacker magazine and LIAT's inflight magazine, Zing!
The content library gained thousands of new high-quality pieces, a dozen engaging films that sell the destination, and two dozen new source-market ambassadors.
Media
The work
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