[JUDGING] Fáilte Ireland X Core
Section: Social Media Strategy: Public Body
Organisation Name: Fáilte Ireland X Core
General Strategy Questions
Name Of Brand Client
Fáilte Ireland
Name Of Brand Client Copy
Yes – Fáilte Ireland’s 2026 paid social strategy, demonstrated through the launch of its new ‘Find Yourself on a Short Break’ platform.
Personpeople Who Led This Campaign
Cíara Mc Garry
Do You Use Alt Text In Your Images And Caption Your Videos
No. The campaign did not use alt text. The video creative was predominantly sensory and ASMR-style, using sound and imagery to evoke the feeling of a short break rather than relying on dialogue-led storytelling. Where relevant, on-screen story text formed part of the creative narrative.
What Objective For Campaign
Fáilte Ireland faced an unusual challenge: people did not need convincing to holiday in Ireland. They were already taking domestic breaks. The opportunity was to encourage those travellers to take one more trip each year, particularly off-peak and to less mature destinations.
That required a fundamental shift in social strategy. Rather than telling people where to go or what to do, Fáilte Ireland's new Find Yourself platform focused on why we travel: the feeling of switching off, reconnecting and returning rejuvenated.
Social's role was therefore not simply to maximise low-cost reach. It was to make that emotional promise memorable and relevant, reaching people when the need for a break was most acute.
Our objective was to build broad, attentive reach at launch; connect rejuvenation to recognisable everyday moments; and use creative, context and platform behaviour to gently prompt another short break without hard-selling it.
Outline Your Strategy For This Campaign
Our strategy was built around one thought: don't interrupt the scroll with another tourism ad; make the scroll remind people why they need a break.
We combined Attention + Context. Meta provided national scale; TikTok combined attention with discovery; Snapchat created immersive participation; and LinkedIn tested the power of “recharge” in a professional mindset.
Rather than over-targeting audiences, creative became a targeting signal. A varied suite of socially relevant “Shoulder Drop” moments – from sauna and spa to cabin views and food experiences – gave each platform multiple creative signals from which to optimise delivery towards receptive audiences.
Context added relevance. Activity was weighted towards moments such as the morning commute and evening scroll, when the desire to escape everyday pressures could resonate most strongly.
March launched with high-impact formats including TikTok TopFeed and Snapchat AR, followed by sustained activity through April and May. Performance then informed optimisation: winning creative was prioritised, weaker executions paused and new hooks A/B tested.
What Were The Outcomes For This Campaign Metrics Next Question
The strategy demonstrated that social could do more than distribute a tourism campaign: audience behaviour validated the central strategic idea.
Across platforms and markets, people consistently responded most strongly to authentic experiences communicating escape, wellness and rejuvenation.
Sauna became the standout creative across Meta ROI, Meta NI, TikTok ROI, TikTok NI and premium TikTok TopFeed – validating our decision to put the emotional payoff of a short break at the heart of social creative.
We also learned and adapted in-flight. Weaker creative was paused, while a TikTok A/B test of one creative showed that changing the opening could generate 19% more focused views at the same cost efficiency.
Snapchat moved audiences from viewing to participation, with tens of thousands actively sharing the Find Yourself Lens.
The outcome was bigger than reach: we established a repeatable social model for Fáilte Ireland built around emotionally resonant creative, contextual moments, platform-native delivery and continuous learning.
What Are Your Metrics For This Campaign Real Metrics Please
67.7m paid-social impressions across the campaign.
Meta ROI: 1.82m unique reach, 17.9m impressions and 2.64m ThruPlays at €0.01 each – below the €0.10 planning benchmark.
Meta NI: 668k unique reach and 459k ThruPlays.
TikTok ROI: 24.47m impressions and 1.42m 6-second focused views at €0.01 each.
TikTok TopFeed: 1.09m unique reach and 2.77m launch impressions.
TikTok NI: 3.36m impressions and 234k focused views.
Snapchat ROI: 12m awareness impressions plus 264k Lens plays and 41,390 shares. Activity ranked amongst the top 5% of travel-industry performance on Snapchat Ireland.
Snapchat ROI + NI: 47,884 Lens shares.
LinkedIn test: 186k unique reach and 191k video views at €0.02 CPV.
And creative optimisation worked: the revised TikTok Cabin View generated 19% more focused views than the original at the same €0.02 cost per view.
Is There Anything Else You Want To Add Be Brief
Find Yourself changed the role social played for Fáilte Ireland.
Instead of treating social as inexpensive reach or simply cutting a television campaign into mobile formats, we planned it around how people actually behave on social: fast attention, repeated exposure, discovery, participation and creative-led optimisation.
Most importantly, the strategy generated learning Fáilte Ireland can use beyond one launch. We now know that authentic wellness and escapism consistently resonate across markets; that premium formats can establish a launch before efficient in-feed activity sustains it; that small changes to opening hooks can materially improve viewing behaviour; and that interactive formats can turn passive exposure into active sharing.
That makes the legacy bigger than 67.7 million impressions. We built an evidence-based social playbook for how Fáilte Ireland can inspire Ireland's next short break.