Athens is Awarded for Marketing Efficiency & Ideas that Work!

The largest online & offline integrated marketing initiative ever launched for the City of Athens, has been  honoured with an international efficiency award! 2012 came to the best possible close for the City of Athens Development & Destination Management Agency (ADDMA), as it received the 2012 Silver Effie award  for the launch of the “This is MY Athens” campaign, at this year’s Effie Awards Hellas 2012. The Effie Awards are marketing communications awards given yearly by Effie Worldwide, Inc., a non-profit organization, to honor the most effective marketing communications ideas: ideas that work. “This is MY Athens” was honored for the effective results of the Greek capital’s promotion through the largest photostream of the city ever created and for the launch of one of the largest “tour guide” volunteer programs worldwide thanks to the participation of city residents. The “This is Athens” photostream includes over 5,000 photographs, taken exclusively by Athens’ locals and city visitors and were gathered in less than one month. (Photos are still being uploaded. Click here to view.) The second phase,  “This is MY Athens” campaign was launched in summer 2011 as a free tourist service aimed to enrich visitors’ experiences in Athens. The campaign includes volunteer Athenians acting as tour guides to the Greek capital’s guests, showing them the different faces of Athens and tourist attractions that are not found in travel guides. We have another reason to be proud of the specific initiative as the EFFIE awards are considered one of the greatest recognitions in the marketing and communications field, while they are universally acknowledged as the only awards upon which the effectiveness of a campaign is measured. Both phases of the initiative were designed, developed and implemented, in partnership with ADDMA, by abouTourism (concept development, information architecture, project management) and Mindworks (concept development, website design/development).