How do you bring travellers back to a city when the world is still reeling from lockdowns? That was the challenge with Find Your Freedom, Cape Town Tourism’s largest-ever global campaign. Marketing the destination wasn’t enough, we had to reignite a feeling.

Simplify

People didn’t just miss travel, they missed freedom. Both the autonomy to make choices and the liberty to move at will. Freedom became the emotional bridge back to reality.

Clarify

We combined digital innovation with our Destination Marketing Model, a framework that integrates activity across the entire tourism value chain. The campaign became an interactive, gamified online adventure, inviting people to “choose their freedom” and step into Cape Town virtually. It was about letting people feel the city to entice them to visit physically, then providing convenient, cost-effective ways to make it a reality. Every interaction was designed to move travellers from inspiration to action.

Amplify

Strategic brand partnerships with GoPro, Expedia, TikTok and Comic-Con amplified the campaign across global communities already obsessed with discovery, storytelling and play, and supported the 25:1 return on advertising spend; multiple awards, including Most Viral Campaign, Most Innovative Gamification, Most Revenue Generating Marketing Campaign and Best Communication Strategy for Tourism Globally; plus recognition from organisations such as City/Nation/Place, World Travel Market, Skift and Digital Tourism Think Tank.

However, the campaign’s lasting impact was being credited for the city’s recovery by injecting R147 million into Cape Town’s tourism industry.

→ Watch the trailer: Find Your Freedom

→ Read the article:  IOL – Marketing Impact

→ Read the article: Tourism Update – Destination Marketing Model

Please note that this was developed during my tenure as CMO of Cape Town Tourism. I now share the work through travelstitcher to demonstrate the kind of future-ready solutions I continue to develop today.