Client City of Yokohama
Turning Familiarity with Yokohama into a Desire to Visit — Integrated Multilingual Content and Advertising Drives 145% of the Target for Overseas Website Traffic
From Providing Information to Creating Emotional Connections: A Multilingual Promotion That Inspires Travelers Around the World
Destinations are not chosen based solely on the quantity of available information.
One particularly eye-catching photograph or memorable video, giving a glimpse of a city’s unique vibe, can spark an emotional response and become the reason to choose the next destination.
For Yokohama City’s international tourism campaign, “Inspire Your Soul, Find Your Yokohama,” the goal was not simply to introduce Yokohama’s attractions, but to create communications that would allow travelers around the world to discover the city’s appeal intuitively and imagine it as part of their own journey.
Starting with the development of the promotional concept, K&L integrated the planning and execution of advertising, website development, video, content creation, and multilingual communications. As a result, overseas website traffic reached 145% of the original target.
Challenge & Approach
Challenge
Listing attractions alone is not enough to make a destination the next place travelers choose
As cities around the world compete to attract international visitors, simply presenting information about facilities and tourist attractions is no longer enough to make a lasting impression on potential travelers.
Yokohama offers a diverse range of attractions, from its harbor, nighttime views, art, history, and cuisine to its distinctive cityscape. However, this very diversity presents a challenge: how can these attractions be combined to create a cohesive impression of Yokohama and an emotional reason for travelers to visit?
Travel interests, information-gathering habits, and the visual and messaging styles that resonate with audiences also vary across countries and regions. The challenge was to design communications that would resonate globally while maintaining a consistent sense of what makes Yokohama unique.
Approach
Curating “Moments in Yokohama” that emotionally move people, rather than simply providing information
Under the concept “Inspire Your Soul,” content was built not around a comprehensive collection of tourist spots, but rather on the emotions and experiences travelers can feel and encounter when visiting Yokohama.
Scenes where the sea meets the city, nighttime views that transform with the passing hours, art that stimulates the senses, and a history shaped by the intersection of different cultures. These elements were curated and effectively brought to life through video and web content to intuitively convey the unique moments travelers can experience in Yokohama.
Digital advertising was planned and managed for international markets, including the United States, China, and Europe. By seamlessly connecting the anticipation generated through advertising with videos and website content, we built a marketing journey designed to gradually deepen travelers’ understanding and desire to visit Yokohama.
We also introduced an automated translation platform supporting over 100 languages. Rather than simply translating the Japanese website, we designed the advertising, videos, web content, and multilingual communications as one integrated brand experience. This allowed Yokohama’s appeal to be communicated directly across borders and languages.
Result
Overseas website traffic reached 145% of the target
By integrating and coordinating international advertising, the website, video content, and multilingual communications, global website traffic reached 145% of the original target.
Potential travelers can enjoy discovering the appeal of Yokohama through the advertisements, experiencing the atmosphere of the city through the various videos, and begin imagining what their own journey can be like via the website. Rather than stopping at awareness, we created an end-to-end experience that transformed travelers’ perceptions from “a city I’ve heard of” to “a city I really want to visit.”
Planning
- International marketing strategy
- Promotional concept development
- International target audience analysis
- Communication planning
- Content strategy
- Advertising and media planning
- Multilingual communication planning
Execution
- International campaign website
- Promotional video
- Content production
- International digital advertising
- Ad delivery and performance optimization
- Automated translation in 100+ languages
- Website management