SketchTourPortugal, a Collaborative Approach to Content Creation

In this session, Filipa Maria Cardoso presented to us a keynote on how to develop a collaborative approach to content creation.

Their strategy relies on three pillars:

  • Creativity. It's their why as a brand and their purpose in the world.
  • Stories. The values they think are relevant and they want to stand for.
  • Voice. This represents who they are and how they tell the world about it, it's their identity.

Their strategy relies on three pillars:

  • Creativity. It's their why as a brand and their purpose in the world.
  • Stories. The values they think are relevant and they want to stand for.
  • Voice. This represents who they are and how they tell the world about it, it's their identity.

In this session, Filipa Maria Cardoso presented to us a keynote on how to develop a collaborative approach to content creation through Visit Portugal's most recent case.

Their strategy relies on three pillars:

  • Creativity. It's their why as a brand and their purpose in the world.
  • Stories. The values they think are relevant and they want to stand for.
  • Voice. This represents who they are and how they tell the world about it, it's their identity.

Filipa explained that humankind is their common being, as the word reflects them as a brand due to Portugal welcoming people in a kind, gentle and welcoming way.

She then covered the four main goals of their strategy:

  • The brand is the product.
  • The experience must be immersive.
  • Partnerships are crucial.
  • The message is the medium.

Their strategy, as Filipa mentioned, is adaptable and anchored in people, which means it is focused on an attitude of cooperation and solidarity.

During the pandemic, Visit Portugal was faced with the challenge of how to remind people of the unique and emotional value of travelling. She expressed that the biggest insight they had was that the value of travelling resides in the experiences shared, remembered through our emotions.

Due to this, they reached a creative concept to create a unique destination experience, because the biggest thing to offer is creative and personal experiences.

The project is based on a six-day journey to several destinations with one Portuguese sketcher, one international sketcher, one Portuguese writer and the Film and Visit Portugal crew. There were 10 tours and the idea was to reflect on this human experience and share one's ideas with everyone else in the group.

The project focused on four types of tours:

  • History and science. Archeology, ancient history and scientific tourism.
  • Culture and heritage. Towns, historic centres, lighthouses, bridges and walkways, fado, castles and forts.
  • Portuguese products. Markets, craft, industrial tourism, wine tourism, gastronomy.
  • Natural and wellbeing. Natural reserves and parks, thermal spas, wellness.

And each produced different forms of content:

  • Sketches. +500 sketches.
  • Books. 1 book in bookstores in Portuguese, English and French.
  • Videos. 1 documentary and 10 webisodes.
  • ASMR. A sound library with soundscapes of destinations that give you a feel of the place without seeing it.
  • AR. Creation of an exhibit with AR exploration.

Filipa explained that Portugal has 7 regions, and they not only developed a tour for each one but also created three additional ones. The idea of this was to avoid over-tourism by spreading tourists throughout all regions.

When referring to the content creators, she mentioned they counted with writers, literary and visual content creators, national and international sketchers.

Filipa covered the results of the content generated and explained that, for example, on social media, they had owned and earned (user-generated) content. In addition, the community was engaged and involved to promote the project. The results were 578K in automatic advertising value.

The impact was as follows:

  • Owned media: millions of impressions, reaches, reactions and interactions.
  • Earned media: thousands of video views, comments, shares of the brand hashtags (#SketchTourReload and #SketchTourPortugal).

She wrapped up her session with the following words:

Drawing is like praying, only after a lot of time in silence, in a slow dialogue between pen and paper, Will we see the end result.

Key Takeaways

1. It is possible to avoid over-tourism by creating campaigns that will spread visitors across the regions.

2. Travellers can be a great source of content creation if the right channels are provided and proper communication is in place.

Published on:
December 2021
About the contributor

Filipa Cardoso

Filipa is the Director of Communication and Digital Marketing at VisitPortugal where she coordinates the development of the Destination’s promotion, namely the creative and asset production, digital media campaigns and digital ecosystem management.

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