South Africa is truly living the ‘gold standard’ by winning awards with their tourism campaigns.  Not long ago South Africa Tourism won the Global Gold Award in the International Awards for Innovation in Media through their “My South Africa” campaign.  South Africa serves as another tourism destination thinking outside the box when it comes to marketing.  Again, why can’t we do that?

via sagoodnews.co.za

The campaign was launched in June 2008 with the aim of raising the profile of South Africa among CNN’s elite audience of globe trotters. The multimedia campaign is CNN’s first ever user-generated content driven advertising solution.

‘My South Africa’ encourages CNN viewers worldwide to upload compelling photographs, moving images and stories that encapsulate their experiences of South Africa, via the ‘My South Africa’ website.

By submitting you get the chance to win an all expenses trip for 2 to South Africa.  You can check out the site at www.mysouthafrica.tv

Not limiting themselves to just CNN, South Africa Tourism has launched a similar campaign on YouTube as well which inspired people to submit their impressions of South Africa for a chance to win a trip.

Now that’s an example of thinking outside the box with lower cost ideas that create tremendous buzz for their money.  What are we doing?  Oh right.