Sunrise - View from the mountains

When I think of watching sunrise, I always thought of watching sunrise on a beach. But going to Taiwan has changed my perspective. Watching sunrise in the mountains can also be amazing!

 Sun peeping from behind the clouds and mountains

 First light shrouded by the clouds

 Clouds start to disperse and settle down the valley below

 There's a crowd at the sunrise view spot

Sunrise! Mountains and clouds in the valley below

We were fortunate to have an uncle (staff at one of the souvenir shops beside the view point) explaining how to watch sunrise and how this view spot came about. Watch to find out more below!

This first video explains where the sun will come out from, i.e. if you're there during spring, summer, autumn or winter, the places to look at will vary. These guides also know the time when the sun rises.

The second half of the video explains where the trees have gone to. If you visit this spot you'll see a lone tree at the front, which represents how high the trees were before they were chopped down about a hundred years back.

Welcom to Taiwan 2012 - Time for Taiwan

So after taking various directions and approach to promoting tourism in the country, Taiwan to a step back and levelled up it's branding. In this TVC, Taiwan's attractions are presented in a manner in sync with the slogan, "Time for Taiwan".



So the following themes are presented:
- Time for Taiwan: key attractions in the country
- Time for two wheels: travelling around Taiwan on bicycle
- Time to eat
- Time to shop
- Time to marvel: featuring the cultural faces of Taiwan, including the celebrated festivals and aboriginals ceremonies
- Time for nature: on the natural side of Taiwan
- Time for love: to feature photoshoot locations for newly weds

There is marked differences in the presentation done in 2012 compared to the efforts made in previous years. This TVC is more organised and straightforward, making it simple and easy for visitors to understand what Taiwan has to offer.

Welcome to Taiwan 2011 - Time for Taiwan

The campaign for 2011 took a different direction. Instead of focusing of celebrities and doing "hard sell" via popularising how interesting Taiwan is, the bureau took a down-to-earth normal visitor perspective of things.



So this minute-long TVC is a snapshot of the 16min-long short feature. In it the TVC depicts how visitors from various background - nationality, age and gender - perceive Taiwan. It works because the country is viewed from a visitor's point of view, e.g. group of Japanese girls focusing on shopping and eating in the city, backpacker being in touch to the villages, elderly couple taking the slow pace travel in the farms and a family touching base with various attractions in the country.

It's time for Taiwan~ :)...

Welcome to Taiwan 2010 - Wish to see You in Taiwan

So after Ah Mei and Jolin Tsai, the bureau got 飛輪海 (Fahrenheit) to front the campaign. Watch this.



The main story in this commercial is for the band to bring the fan girl around the country and enjoying, having loads of fun in the country. There's nothing much for me to comment on this TVC.

Welcome to Taiwan 2008 - 2009

After getting Ah Mei to front the Welcome to Taiwan campaign, the next was Jolin Tsai. Let's take a look at the commercial.



So the focus of the campaign this time is very different from the previous in 2007 where Ah Mei and the cultural side of Taiwan was featured. The 2007 campaign was focused on introducing the attractions and achievements of Taiwan. It may sound like as if Taiwan was boasting about it's achievements - but why not? The strategy was probably to get potential visitors interested about what is nice about Taiwan, and why they should visit Taiwan.

So it's a pretty straight forward campaign that year. Just Welcome to Taiwan!

Welcome to Taiwan 2007 - Naruwan - Welcome to Taiwan!

So in 2007, the Taiwan Tourism Bureau got Ah Mei to be the ambassador of Taiwan tourism. The TVC is largely focused on publicising the cultural aspect of Taiwan, mostly featuring the aborigines, where Ah Mei is from. Here's a look.



So the TVC ends off with Naruwan - Welcome to Taiwan!, which means "Hello, welcome to Taiwan!", in one of the aboriginal languages. More information on Formosa languages (aboriginal Taiwanese languages) can be found here on wikipedia.

Well, when you have an international star taking the front of a campaign, it's an impact itself. So there needs less to do much about the TVC. I can venture a guess that the bureau probably spent a lot on the fees paid to the singer as an ambassador, but it's worth it. In fact, this is the reason why I noted the Welcome to Taiwan campaign from the beginning.

Thus, there is a lot of significance in getting Ah Mei to front the campaign for the year, and tying the theme of  having the people who originally owned the island welcoming visitors to Taiwan.

Here's a song from Ah Mei which features her mom.

Welcome to Taiwan! 2006 - Taiwan - Touch Your Heart

I have always been fascinated with the way the Taiwan Tourism Bureau did it's publicity campaign. Since 2006 (or earlier but I won't have a record here), they actively engaged various themes in their tourism publicity campaigns. A crucial part of the campaign is in the TV advertisements which are shown around the world. However, it's a pity that the TVCs are not properly framed on their YouTube or homepage. In the end, it's outreach appear diffused and most of its works are not fully leverage on. Hence I am attempting to build a timeline of TVCs done by Taiwan Tourism Bureau, and explain in my opinion how the TVCs are catching various themes throughout the years to keep people's interest in travelling to the country.

The Tourism Bureau was established on Dec. 29, 1972, under the Ministry of Transportation & Communications and it is responsible for the administration of domestic and international tourism policy making, execution and development. Some information on the history of the Bureau development can be found on their admin site.

Here's a look at the 2006 TVC, the earliest which I could find on the web.


Taiwan - Touch Your Heart

This TVC is made of short 1 ~ 2 seconds clips, drilling on the themes of nature and culture in Taiwan. The words, "Ilha Formosa", mean Beautiful Island and was originated from the Portuguese who sailed there in 1544. Considering as one of the first attempts on the TVC, it's done in a simplistic manner to capture the audience attention. What is commendable is there is really so much to show throughout the 3-minute video (i.e. about 360clips) is you can hardly see repetitive images. This shows Taiwan as an interesting place which has so much to offer that you probably will not have an idea where to begin.

And this is where the problem lies with the commercial. To the 1.5minute mark I began feeling bored watching it. So if this is on TV, it'll probably be some background music playing in the room. There is also too much information featured on the video, so it's pretty impossible to catch it all.

The later years of TVCs will prove to be huge improvements to this version.

It's time for Taiwan - Heart of Asia

I'd always like the way the Taiwan Tourism Bureau does the TVC and media campaign to reach out people around the world. This is because it has strong taglines and the TVCs portray Taiwan in a uniquely Asian country and yet welcoming to people from around the world.

The theme of Taiwan having visitors from around the world, from various walks of life is well positioned in this short feature. What they did was to get Japanese and Western visitors, friends, families and backpackers to "demonstrate" what tourists do when they visit Taiwan, e.g. be in touch with the locals, going on themed attractions, experiencing the local culture, and etc.



I'd wanted to put together a series of TVCs to show how the themes have evolved throughout the years, but it'll take me sometime as they were (unfortunately) not well organised. Will be back with another post on Taiwan Toursim Bureau TVC soon.