Where Sea Meets Soul

Visit Jersey’s campaigns have historically launched in a saturated December – January market where high media spend is needed to get cut through. We are now moving to an ‘always-on’ approach, with our initial launch of Where Sea Meets Soul in March and the next iteration launching in early September. By advertising in this period, we play into the shorter booking lead time for Jersey of four to six weeks. We are also able to stay in market longer, giving us a stronger share of voice.

The autumn-winter campaign is informed by detailed insights from the spring-summer campaign, taking a digital and data first approach which allows us to be highly targeted in our advertising and helping our spend go much further.

While this is an evolution of the spring-summer campaign, our key messaging remains the same, but with more of a focus on Moment Makers. Messaging and creative is tailored for each audience, for each platform and each objective. Inspirational messaging for the awareness phase, interest-focused messaging for the consideration phase, and tactical offer messaging for the conversion phase.

The first iteration of Where Sea Meets Soul was well received by industry, with increased partner referrals and positive feedback on the contemporary look and feel. This, in part, informed our decision to extend the campaign and get industry further involved. We have worked closely with local hotels to encourage participation in a standardised ‘Up to 25% off’ autumn-winter getaway offer, with a short booking window. This has helped us to create a compelling call to action on our booked media, encouraging target audiences to book a short autumn or winter break in Jersey.

This campaign also sees a slight change in channels and ad placements, with more specific media targeting for each audience, and a stronger focus on audio and digital. These include:

• A selection of linear radio, digital audio and podcast placements will target either Moment Makers or Easy Explorers specifically or both.
• Enhancements on social, with new formats being tested and a retargeting campaign in place to focus on driving conversions.
• Contextual Programmatic advertising, delivering assets based on content pillars to relevant websites, reaching people with content that they are interested in, to further provide opportunities for booking.
• OOH opportunity at Tottenham Court Road is being used again, to feature a hero image and message.
• Partnership with Télé magazine and Au Feminin, to target potential French travellers (specifically from Brittany and Normandy), with a DPS advertorial and front cover placement in the former and a web article featured in the latter. A French landing page has been built that includes the standardised offer and lists all hotels participating to drive bookings from the French market.

Visit Jersey is working with three key partners in new ways to increase the reach of the campaign. Mail Online readers will have early access to an exclusive reader offer from 02 September whilst British Airways Holidays, alongside BA Euroflyer, will launch a special Avios offer between 02-14 October, gifting triple Avios points to Executive Club members on trips to Jersey between October 2024 and March 2025.

The autumn-winter campaign will again target our two key segments based on their motivations, needs and behaviours when they travel. We will continue to nurture our Easy Explorers while placing an increased focus on Moment Makers audience as a growth opportunity, showcasing the island as an exciting, appealing destination for a younger demographic. We’ve created a brand new bank of Easy Explorers and Moment Makers focused creative assets, along with placing budget behind separate Easy Explorers and Moment Makers focused media. As part of this shift towards a more targeted campaign, audience-specific landing pages have been built.

Whilst the spring-summer campaign predominantly targeted the UK, with some focus on France and Germany, for autumn-winter, we will be focusing almost entirely on the UK market as connectivity is strongest during this period. Some limited activity will run in France with a feature in print publication Télé Magazine, specifically targeting visitors from Normandy and Brittany, and aufeminin.com which is France-wide.