Kerala Tourism's Blog Express Initiative Wins 'Oscar' of Indian Advertising

Posted on 06 Jun 2016

After setting the blogosphere alight with memorable travel narratives from across God’s Own Country, Kerala Blog Express – Kerala Tourism’s pioneering blogger outreach programme – has gained added traction.

The third edition of the initiative, which saw 30 influential bloggers from 25 countries set out on a fortnight coach trip across Kerala to soak in the state’s culture and heritage has bagged the much coveted ABBY award – the Oscar of Indian advertising – in the Social Media (Outreach) category.

Conceived by Stark Communications, Kerala Tourism’s creative and brand management agency, Kerala Blog Express (KBE) 3.0 beat out campaigns from a competitive pool that included corporate giants such as P&G, Pampers, Amazon India, Cadbury Choclairs, Flipkart and Asus India as also high-profile marketing drives for the Star World show Quantico and the movie Talvar.

The accolade augments the destination pull created by on-the-road stories from the bloggers, who are considered the last word in global travel and carefully chosen for the trip on the basis of their nationality, blog quality, popularity, followers and social media reach, as they experienced a unique opportunity to explore and expound on Kerala’s many attractions.

From February 15-29, the select group – among whom were travel, lifestyle and food bloggers, photographers and Vloggers – covered more than 2,300 km across the state from Thiruvananthapuram to Wayanad in a specially branded luxury coach.

Since its launch in 2014, KBE has received over 2,500 registrations and around 72,000 votes from travelling enthusiasts who select from a nominee list that features the biggest names in the travel blogging community. The nominees who get the highest votes are chosen: The polls have allowed 87 travel bloggers from 35 countries to participate in the programme’s three editions.

If KBE 1.0 created significant buzz worldwide about Kerala as a tourist destination, that momentum has carried over and been sustained in the second and third seasons, which have seen added attractions and ever increasing participation. This year, participant registrations hit a new high with more than 1,000 bloggers from 66 countries registering for the event.

Over its run, the KBE has been featured in over 500 blog articles globally. With over 24,000 tweets, the KBE’s Twitter page has a reach of six million – the first two editions of the KBE had about 200,000 and 500,000 impressions respectively on the micro-blogging site. More than 5,000 pictures have been shared via Instagram. The initiative’s Facebook album has received more than 28,000 likes while the official website of over eight lakh views.

The programme’s sustained efficacy and creative excellence has led to the ABBY – Advertising Club Bombay, a dynamic platform for professionals from the marketing, advertising, media, research and public relations fraternity – award, the biggest and most prestigious advertising awards show in the country attended by more than 2,500 professionals.