ABOUT

The Welsh Government has set 2016 as the “Year of Adventure.” A year where Wales will promote itself as the world’s capital of adventure and outdoor tourism. During this period, the country will showcase its stunning landscapes, historic attractions and unique events and activities. Traditional and digital means will convey this message on behalf of Wales’ official tourism board Visit Wales. To make this happen, though, Visit Wales would need a digital platform and a campaign to inspire people to take these trips.

We were approached with an idea of using content created by past and current visitors to Wales to inspire future visitors. A key component of the campaign is the #FindYourEpic hashtag. So the aim was to use images from various social media channels under this hashtag, and display them together on an independent campaign site. Our task was to make that idea a reality.

The #FindYourEpic site imports user-generated content – images from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook – for a certain hashtag from the promotional campaign. Within this curated library of images, Visit Wales can select relevant images and edit the related content such as title, description and the relevant tags to appear on the site. All in a custom application within the Sitecore CMS. The images from certain locations are then cross-referenced back to the main Visit Wales website. Here, users can access more information on each Welsh location which the images refer to.

Exploring and finding your own epic is what the Year of Adventure is all about; so the site needed to reflect a similar “epic” experience. We are encouraging visitors to engage with Visit Wales by giving them the platform for their images and social profiles to reach a wider audience. That audience can then engage with this content based on the images that inspire them.

Our creative team started with a grid of images where the user could scroll through those images that load as you progress down the page. Following some research, the concept developed to a pannable solution, but would need to function on both desktop and touchscreen devices. The market is geared up to consume social media content on-the-go. Our solution needed the same appeal.

At the beginning, we weren’t sure if this type of feature was even possible. It’s difficult to assess whether smartphone and tablet devices have the processing power required to create the infinite scrolling experience we had in mind. The site had to be efficient. It had to do only what it needed to do – otherwise, the experience would be flawed.

Our developers had a lot to do behind the scenes to ensure that the site only rendered what was on display. Managing the memory and CPU in this way is something you wouldn’t normally do with a standard scrolling screen. But our solution in this respect is different. It allows users to scroll in all directions, with the user experience never hindered regardless of where they’re doing it.

This year marks the beginning of a tourism drive for Wales, with the #FindYourEpic site featuring at the core as an inspiration for anyone setting out on a Welsh adventure. It showcases content from the people that have already experienced that content at first hand. A guide created by the visitors themselves – and all they need to do is post images on their social profiles using the #FindYourEpic tag.

It's a simple campaign site upon a glance. But one far from standard. Its features – and how it completes the tasks required – is the complicated aspect. Yet, the end result is completely user-friendly. It couldn’t be any simpler for users to engage and for Visit Wales to manage. Visitors can then enjoy content via a social experience that no other social media platform can offer. Combining content creation and social proofing to boost engagement and referral traffic to the new Visit Wales main site. But more importantly, increasing the number of visitors to Wales.