Tourism Ireland doubled its advertising spend on a promotional video for Banshees of Inisherin with its behind-the-scenes look at the critically-acclaimed movie going viral on social media.
The tourism promotion agency had been planning to spend €100,000 on a marketing campaign to capitalise on the film, which stars Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell.
However, after they saw how spectacular the West of Ireland looked in footage as well as glowing reviews for the movie, they upped spending to €200,000.
On YouTube, Tourism Ireland's behind-the-scenes mini film racked up nearly 6 million views even though the video itself had cost just €1,230 to make.
They said the campaign had been timed to coincide with the release of the film and ran for two weeks in Britain and the US.
They said YouTube was "the optimum platform" for the campaign based on previous experience showing that showed short clips worked best there.
At the end of the campaign, the behind-the-scenes look had amassed more than 5.8 million viewings on the video sharing channel.
That worked out at a cost per completed view of around 2.6 cent in the US and less than a cent in Britain.
Tourism Ireland said they had also shared the video organically on their Instagram and Twitter accounts where it was seen by around 200,000 people.
The all-island tourism body said when the campaign was originally planned, they had been looking at a €100,000 budget but that this was subsequently doubled.
They said the final bill for the campaign had been €201,230 with a paid promotion of the video in France still due to take place later this month.
Tourism Ireland said they would undertake further promotion of the behind-the-scenes video in Germany, Spain, Italy, and other European countries as the film goes on release in each market.
They said they had also invited ten international journalists to attend the Irish premiere of the film and to explore filming locations in Achill Island and Inis Mór at a cost of €3,324.
"To date, this publicity push has generated 19 articles, which reached 5.3 million people and were worth €2.2m in equivalent advertising value," they said.
A brief for the Banshees campaign said they needed to create "awareness and buzz" around the release of the film and the fact it was filmed in Ireland.
"Red C research from earlier this year in Great Britain, the US and France emphasise the role that film and TV can play in ensuring a destination is top of mind and topical. We need to leverage the buzz around the release of the movie to gain standout for Ireland as a holiday destination," it added.
A breakdown of costs showed that around €66,000 of the budget was spent in the US market, €74,000 in Britain, with €60,000 allocated for the launch of the film in France later in December.
A spokesperson for Tourism Ireland said: "In creating our behind-the-scenes video, our aim was to highlight the stunning scenery of the West of Ireland and to remind cinema-goers overseas that The Banshees of Inisherin was shot on location here".
"This film had already received two major awards at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, so we want to capitalise on the positive exposure for Ireland, bringing the beautiful scenery of the Wild Atlantic Way to the attention of people in some of our main markets and inspiring them to come and visit," the spokesperson added.
Reporting by Ken Foxe
