Have you got #ThatIslandFeeling?

The recently unveiled rebrand, ‘The Islands of Guernsey,’ emphasises the island’s position as a launchpad for a five-island visitor experience, which includes Alderney, Sark, Herm and Lihou.  

The hashtag #ThatIslandFeeling has been chosen to underpin the new marketing push, and it is hoped islanders will get behind it on social media. 

‘Hopefully people will engage with the hashtag, which will give us a greater ability to get the message out there,’ said VisitGuernsey’s digital marketing manager Peter Amory. 

What the research revealed

The re-brand, which was covered by VisitGuernsey’s £2.5m. annual budget, is the result of extensive research using focus groups and visitor surveys, which identified island-hopping to be one of Guernsey’s key selling points.

The re-brand’s new keywords include natural beauty, freedom, inspiring, effortless and authentic, and the primary target demographic will be affluent, outdoorsy visitors, aged 50 plus. Its messaging has also been designed to appeal to the active family market, specifically parents aged 40-55. 

‘There’s a lot more focus on the collective Bailiwick and the experiences people can have in each of the islands. The fact each one offers a unique experience is what we’re trying to convey,’ said Mike Hopkins, VisitGuernsey’s director of marketing and tourism.

‘Guernsey is the hub and you can only get to the other islands directly from here, so that’s very important to us.’

Why a brand refresh? 

After five years of the ‘Great Things Happen In Guernsey’ campaign, the new branding comes in response to increased competition from UK domestic and short-haul destinations, and a need to make smarter use of Guernsey’s tourism budget.

‘We’re having to make the budget work even harder,’ said Mr Hopkins.

‘We have a total budget of £2.5m and that covers all our marketing, the Tourist Information Centre, the VisitGuernsey team and working with industry partners. Our biggest one-off spend is on media. That’s why we’ve identified specific target segments, to help us focus our marketing spend.’

While the tourism strategy aimed to reach a 3% year-on-year increase, that was not realistic in the current market, said Mr Hopkins. Growth of 1% or 2%, however, would be considered good.

‘The industry has seen a 30-year decline in staying visitor numbers. Since 2015, we’ve started to see a levelling off of this decline and modest levels of growth. You can’t turn around those levels of decline overnight.’

How will the new campaign be rolled out?

The re-brand includes a new logo, refreshed customer and trade websites, new imagery, social media campaigns, as well as advertising in national media including The Telegraph, Daily Mail and The Times. A 30-second television commercial will air on digital platforms, targeting key demographics in specific postcodes, such as those within a 60 to 9o-minute drive time of Guernsey air and ferry ports.

Guernsey tourism in numbers:

• At the year to date, Guernsey has had nearly 368,900 visitors, delivering a total of 683,690 commercial bed nights. 
• Staying leisure visitors are up by 2,627, a 2% increase on 2018.
• There has been a total of 27,798 total French visitors this year, an increase of 47%.
• There has been 14% visitor growth from elsewhere.