How does a super-mini town of only 78 residents situated on 1000+ meters high attract people’s attention?
Of course, in this desolately remote town with only a few cows, a church, a hotel and a few dozen senior residence, you wouldn’t expect there to be any topic worthy of notice. However, they cleverly chose the cheapest and most convenient way to link to the world, the social media—Facebook. In less than a month, they have become the subject that has been widely reported in 32 countries thousands of miles away from them, making them the most lively fan page in their country. Their attention parameter even surpassed Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Moreover, their 79th resident was just born recently.
The elder of Obermutten, a remote town situated atop of a mountain in Switzerland, “Any friend who joined the town’s Facebook page, we will print out your Facebook profile picture and post on the bulletin board of the town.” It doesn’t matter what skin color or ethnicity you are, we will treat everyone as equal, the only condition we ask is that “you click ‘Like’ on our page!”
Since the event started, the fans rapidly increased, nearly 10,000 fans from all over the world joined the fan page, wondering where exactly is this Obermutten place. Thousands of them said that they’d pick this town as their next tourist spot and hundreds of them have fulfilled this wish. At the surface, these numbers seem unremarkable, but if you compare it with their actual resident number, you could feel the power of this event.
This fan page event has no prize, no lucky draw as gimmick and is fairly similar to a previous event I’ve shared on my blog, the “New way to attract fans and make you famous on Facebook.” The only different is Corona Light event was hosted in the trendy Time Square in New York and this is a little village in the middle of nowhere in Switzerland.
“Corona set up a huge electro-bulletin board in the Time Square and stood erect few stories high. You don’t need to buy any Corona or collect the bottle caps to join the event, nor do you need to be a VIP. So long as you join their fan page and upload your picture to their exclusive Corona Fan Page, they will broadcast your picture on this huge board, giving you free publicity to shine in the streets of New York.”
Both of them did one thing, “Many times to be respected or receive a privilege is a cheap and effective way to buy a person’s heart.”
“Can events like this really stimulate local tourism or is it just a fad?” I think this is a question that resonates with many people, especially the brand owners or agents planning the events and activities. If we change the angle and view things from consumers’ perspective, maybe we could gain some insight.
Brand owners or agents may think, “How to attract people?” If you get into a subject through this kind of angle, you may easily put all the focus on “How to dish out the most attractive or characteristic ‘beef’?” However, this is only reassuring to the brand owners and agents but to the consumers, they don’t see any fun in it because there are so many beautiful sceneries around the world, why would I pay attention to you and your ‘beef’? What does it have to do with me?
In this specific case scenario we saw how the little town communicates with consumers: they throw an interesting and relevant point to you. Give you a wonderful imagination of “having your profile picture shown in a remote mountain village hat you may never in your life visit.” When you click on “Like” on their Facebook page, you enter into Obermutten’s fan page and you may spend a bit of time viewing the content and see what other fans have said about it or the picture of others’ profile pictures been posted on the bulletin board. If that can’t satisfy you, you can even link to the official website of Obermutten to see more about the town. Your curiosity and interest about this town has gradually and unwittingly took you through all these steps. And for them, the purpose of the communicating “How to attract tourists?” has been accomplished.
Maybe someday, when you plan a trip to Switzerland and you’d think of the little town that has your profile picture on it and plan a visit there. So the reason that attracts you to the place is not purely about sightseeing but the event itself!
About Author
Mika, Internet Marketing Observer
Born in the 60s, Mika has worked in the field of consumption marketing for decades. He experienced brand strategy, product concept all the way to official launch. He cars about traditional marketing model as well as the changes arise from Web2.0 and social media.
blog :jabamay.blogspot.com