Tourism officials in Vilnius don't think that enough people know where it is (spoiler: it's the capital of Lithuania) so they've turned the city's obscurity into a selling point in its latest tongue-in-cheek campaign.
The playful campaign, called 'Vilnius: Amazing Wherever You Think It Is" pokes fun at the city's obscurity and follows the success of the 2018 award-winning "Vilnius - the G-spot of Europe" campaign, which claimed that "nobody knows where it is, but when you find it - it's amazing."
According to a 2019 study, done by Go Vilnius, the official tourism development agency of the city, only 5% of British people, 3% of Germans, and 6% of Israelis "know more than the name and the approximate location of Vilnius."
So to celebrate the launch of the new campaign, a dedicated website will ask visitors to guess where Vilnius is for a chance of winning a trip to the city, while also providing guests with a number of reasons why the Baltic city is so special - especially in terms of culture, art, history, nature, food and an Old Towns that is a Unesco World Heritage site. Historically, Vilnius has been a welcoming country and the city's coat of arms even features Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travellers.
Besides the website, there is also a video clip doing the rounds in which people on the streets of Berlin are asked if they know where Vilnius is. In the clip, people place the far away from home, from Americas to Africa - everywhere but its actual location. Billboards in London, Liverpool and Berlin have also appeared in conjunction with the campaign, reimagining Vilnius in various fantasy worlds.
“Vilnius is continuing the course of presenting itself as an easygoing yet daring city, unafraid to laugh at its faults and break free from certain norms," said the director of Go Vilnius, Inga Romanovskienė. Our goal is to show that no matter where people think Vilnius is located, it is a great place to go visit,” said Ms Romanovskienė.
