Find out how Moray Speyside is getting more from its marketing spend
The Moray Council are among the partner organisations currently enjoying much greater marketing exposure for their budgets thanks to the economies of scale in VisitScotland’s new Explore Scotland campaign – our biggest ever regional marketing push.
Responding to feedback from local authorities, destination organisations and other regional partners, VisitScotland has developed its biggest ever marketing campaign for Scotland’sregions: ‘Explore Scotland – We’ll point you in the right direction’.
The Moray Council is among those partners taking advantage of Explore Scotland which complements the national ‘Surprise Yourself’ campaign for the UK & Ireland markets. The Explore Scotland campaign provides practical assistance to help potential visitors filter their choices and decide where to spend their holiday time in Scotland.
As well as being the biggest, Explore Scotland is also unique in the respect that it is our first campaign led by our local marketing department, entirely funded by partners – thanks to local authorities and the European Regional Development Fund.
This cumulative investment by local authorities across the country, combined with VisitScotland’s established buying power, means that each of the partners achieves a reach that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive.
Working with Moray Tourism Development and Moray Council we pulled together a mix of press supplements, adverts, radio, door
drops, digital and sales promotions which has enabled us to promote the region to a wide audience. The combined press, radio and online coverage will ensure the Moray Speyside message reaches over 6 million consumers with sales promotions reaching a further 250,000.
Moray Speyside featured in joint supplement packages in the Herald in March (below left) reaching 154,000 readers; in the Daily Record
in April (below middle) reaching 876,000 readers and in the Sunday Post (below right) reaching 872,000 readers.
A dedicated Moray Speyside feature appeared in a double page advert in the Dundee Courier (below left) reaching 159,000 readers and a full page advert featured in the Sunday Post in May (below right) reaching 872,000 readers.
Moray Speyside also featured in a sales promotion through Whisky magazine reaching around 98,000 readers. The campaign used radio advertising on a number of Bauer Radio stations which gave over 1.3 million opportunities for people to hear the Moray Speyside message. The adverts promoting Moray Speyside were aired on Tay FM and Real XS. The full campaign was heard by 243,000 adults. This represents 19.6% of the total adult population within the transmission areas of the stations we are advertising on, with each adult hearing the advert on average 5.8 times each. The 30 second radio ads portray a phone call to VisitScotland’s contact centre, with a visitor asking for a recommendation for somewhere to suit their interests, prompting a recommendation for Moray Speyside.
An Explore Scotland map also included a selection of things to see and do in Moray Speyside. This reached over 1.8 million people partly as an insert in a suite of Scotland and UK broadsheets and tabloids, and partly as a door drop to households
The value of this activity for each of the partners is formidable in comparison with their respective investments. While such economies of scale have always been true of investment in VisitScotland marketing, Explore Scotland extends the principle by admitting partners on more modest budgets than ever before. Placing VisitScotland’s marketing strategy within the reach of more partners has advantages all round. It gives more areas the opportunity to promote their ‘surprising’ products to visitors, and it means that we’re leveraging marketing spend in more of the country – which in turn increases VisitScotland’s media buy.
Surprise Yourself – national radio campaign
All of the activity outlined above is based on our partnership with Moray Council. Meanwhile, VisitScotland continues to promote Moray
Speyside as part of the wider Highlands, at home and overseas, with discretionary coverage across our marketing effort.
As part of Surprise Yourself, our UK and Ireland Marketing team launched a new national radio campaign on Monday 30 April.
It runs until the end of July on radio stations across England and is part of a range of activity that encourages listeners to enter a competition to win their own ‘surprising’ Scottish experience.
The recorded radio adverts and live promotion by the radio presenters will direct listeners to the radio station’s websites, where they can watch a short online video featuring Neil Oliver and enter the competition. Awareness of the competition will also be raised by email newsletters. There
are a number of Highland locations and events featured in this including Rockness.

