Tourism Ireland will spend more than €17.6 million on a ‘green button’ marketing campaign with the initiative hit by delays and increased production costs from the pandemic.
The campaign is focused on four separate markets with an overall marketing budget of €15.5 million, according to records released by the tourism promotion agency.
About €4.6 million was spent in the UK market, with another €4.1 million targeted at the United States.
Tourism Ireland said they had also planned for spending of €2.5 million in Germany, €1.8 million in France and smaller sums – all below €500,000 – in Italy, Spain, the Nordics, Switzerland and the Netherlands and Belgium.
Further marketing spending of €620,000 in Canada and €150,000 in the United Arab Emirates was also undertaken.
The cross-Border agency said they had spent €2.141 million on the creation and development of the initiative, which is designed to encourage short breaks to Ireland.
It said production costs had been hit by Covid-related delays with a requirement for regular PCR and antigen testing on filming days.
Due to differing restrictions on both sides of the Border, shoots also had to be organised and managed separately which they said had resulted in “increased costs”.
The €2.141 million spend covered 7½ days of filming in the Republic at locations including the Cliffs of Moher, the Ha’penny Bridge, Lough Tay and Trinity College.
Another four days of shooting took place in the North at locations in Belfast and along the causeway coast, they said.
Tourism Ireland said their creative agency Publicis Poke had created 600 different pieces of content for use on radio, TV, on social media and in print.
Invoices for the project included extra filming at the Cliffs of Moher due to adverse weather, additional production time and coordination, and an extra shooting day in Belfast.
However, the aim of the ‘green button’ campaign would be separate to “reassurance messaging” that was already underway, and this was not a “fundamental part of this brief”.
It said a shift toward a slightly younger demographic of the “culturally curious” traveller might be necessary.
