Whether on travel or in communication, the slogan “holiday just like with friends” is essential for Frosch’s customer relations – annually ending in a big event for customers, business partners and employees. Up to 2.000 guests are being welcomed each autumn for the big summer season final. However, this highlight is jeopardized in November 2021 for the second time because of the covid pandemic. One year earlier, a virtual event with video conferences, streaming and digital interaction replaced the real party. But what will happen in 2021?
The Challenge: A Mass Event Without a Mass
The final of summer season 2021 cannot remain a simple online event, that is clear right from the beginning. Zoom conferences and Teams meetings have becoming too much of a tiring daily business, pure online events remember too strongly on darkest pandemic times as if one could expect success from those measures.
Concurrently, it is not clear if a big party is possible or wanted in November 2021. In addition, after tough years for tourism, budgets for big parties hardly exist. So far our ungrateful initial position.
The Answer: Germanys biggest Scavenger Hunt
With little budget and unclear situation it remains the possibility of using onboard measures. The matching alternatives comes sort of by itself. Besides classical packaged tours Frosch also offers guided day trips – an excellent example of customer relations. Especially made for guests who want to find a little bit of “Frosch feeling” on a small scale before, after or in between vacation, we organize hundreds of this kind of tours each year.
In those we find the possibility of combining several tours at a time to “covid compliant event in small groups”. But what will connect those single elements? How to transport brand cores beyond the single events? We make it a joined scavenger hunt all over Germany.
The Realisation: Offline and Online in Reasonable Connection
The idea is as simple as it is complicated. From Tegernsee in the deep south up to Lower Saxony in the far north very different tours will take place. They have in common to be part of Germanys biggest scavenger hunt. On all tours there will be a small riddle, a hidden hint wants to be found. Finally, all hints from all tours make up the answer to the traditional highlight of all season finals: the big Frosch tombola.
As modern as a scavenger hunt can be, all hints are hidden in style of geocaching. The groups publish all found hints online in the Frosch Facebook community. Frosch then publishes all hints on its own Facebook page, on Instagram and on the campaign’s landingpage. This is how we build the digital connection of all groups and the Frosch community. Together they puzzle on the solution.
The Result: More than Overwhelming
The details of this PR measure appear complicated, the result was fantastic. All measures were in advance communicated via e-mail newsletter, social media, and the Frosch website. During the actual event from 6. – 7. November 12 tours took place all over Germany. From here started a fantastic live interaction within the Facebook community with its 7,000 members.
At the end there is a result which makes us more than happy. In total 20,344 participants in the tombola, 2 e-mail newsletter with 79,450 recipients, an average opening rate of 22.5 % and 422 clicks as well as social media with 18 Posts from 24.10. until 8.11. and 93,300 solely organic reach.
Conclusion: Creative Solutions Result in Success
A real, big party cannot be replaced by many small events. However, we achieved to find a comparable substitute. The numbers speak for themselves. As a live event on it’s own Germanys biggest scavenger hunt would have been a small thing. By reasonable combination with online communication it became a big success.
