How to sell the Czech Republic

Client

Czech Tourism

How to sell the Czech Republic as an attractive tourist destination to people from all over the world who often don't even know where our country lies? There are probably not many larger and more difficult-to-grasp Czech brands. At the very beginning, there was one of our books, How to Get..., which someone from the Czech tourism headquarters discovered in a library, and it occurred to them that we could be the ones to help them prepare documentation for the upcoming tender for a new tourist logo of the Czech Republic.

What we did

Communication strategy – Campaign – Web – Digital

Czechia, land of stories

Helping brands is our daily bread, but as passionate tourists, this opportunity pleased us more than usual. And we had no idea yet how long and joyful a journey together we actually had ahead of us.

The client came with a vision of Czechia as a land of stories and, in the first phase, set before us the task to "JUST understand and SOMEHOW inspirationally grasp" this endlessly comprehensive and broad topic and pass it on to graphic designers who would apply for the tender for the logo and visual style. So we started thinking, and the result of a multi-day workshop, to which we invited Vladimir 518 and Rostislav Křivánek, was a slideshow with our version of the story and image of the Czech Republic.

Open our work ended, the designers stepped up to the task. Studio Marvil became the winner with a concept based on a simple textual wordplay. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the feedback from some colleagues in the industry, who in their comments on the tender expressed praise for the standard of processing the brief documentation. Judging by their words, our contribution made sense.

"Several things are worth mentioning this time. Good preparation by CzechTourism. The intro video created by the organization has no parallel in my opinion. It is truly inspirational, plays on the note of Czech identity, and arouses the need to be a part of it."

– Luděk Rychtar, CEO Arkadia, iHned

Second journey into the Land of Stories

It didn't take long before a second opportunity arrived. It soon became apparent that it wouldn't be enough to just dress the old content in a new, more attractive coat, but that the entire communication content had to change significantly along with the visual identity.

The Land of Stories concept offered an infinite space for imagination, but without at least a framework boundary, its boundlessness was dangerous. After all, every country is a land of stories, so how can the Czech Republic differ?
The places we were supposed to tell stories about were not new, but our ambition was to offer a new perspective and give the communication of traditional tourist destinations a new spin.

Step 1

Putting the pieces together

We devoted many hours to gathering background materials and conducting research to assemble the most diverse mosaic of possible cues. Then, when putting the individual parts together, rather than looking at individual details and the logical connections between them, we were increasingly drawn to the confrontations of some old and new stories associated with a single place.

Step 2

Narrowing the focus

Nine places were selected for the first phase of communication. Nine themes and foundational stories that were meant to differentiate the individual destinations from one another. This assembly was then to serve as a representative profile of the Czech Republic in campaigns, at trade fairs, on core materials, and on web pages.

We approached notoriously known tourist spots just like independent brands – it was necessary to prepare a thorough research, formulate a unique offering, and sufficiently differentiate them from each other. This was intended to help each place stand out and be memorable. Therefore, a brief claim and intro text were created for each.

Step 3

Deepening research for the main texts

When writing the main texts, it was necessary to deepen the existing research and often go down to the absolute details, which always add the necessary tension to the stories. It wasn't always necessary to look for new things; sometimes it was enough to just combine certain events differently, elsewhere to deepen a peripheral topic or bring lesser-known facts to light, or to try an original interpretation of hitherto unexplained events. New to mention that the time devoted to this stage far exceeded anything we had known until then.

Step 4

Execution

Designer? Copywriter? We are mostly both at the same time.

Every story can take many forms. It depends on who tells it, how they build the plot, which characters they give more space to, and what punchline they choose. If you are telling a story on the web, you also have many design and technical tools at your disposal to support the intended dramaturgy. We let the main story flow in a single line composed of several chapters and supplemented it with secondary mini-topics. The textual and visual lines flow inseparably side by side, aimed at sparking readers' imaginations and starting their journey even before they set off for the destination.

Given the early completion date, a vital advantage for AnFas proved to be the fact that our copywriters all without exception have practical experience in design, which allows them right from the start to think about the overall concept in context – where it is better to cut text and add an image, or how to handle the overall interconnectedness of individual media. Thanks to this, the overall "editorial office" could be much smaller, and our work was more efficient.

pribehy.czechtourism.com

Positive feedback

The pages were launched along with an extensive online campaign. From the beginning, we carefully monitored statistics and analyzed traffic. Some shortcomings appeared early on, so we fine-tuned details of the user interface and technical operation to expand the pages, help achieve better performance for the ongoing campaign, and increase visitor traffic not only to the website but to the Czech Republic as well.

The icing on the cake of this amazing journey into the stories of Czechia was an award in the Web Top 100 competition. In its evaluation, the jury highlighted the copywriting, high-quality editorial execution, coding in modern HTML5, and exceptionally well-managed cascading style sheets.

"The website contains top-notch texts, which will certainly help with its discoverability in search engines... it is handled very well for mobile devices, and the user can truly enjoy each story anywhere."