Aruba Image Bank

Background

Aruba is a tiny island off the coast of Venezuela with beautiful beaches, sunny weather and dry cool breezes. However, it is surrounded by other larger tourist destinations, who are able to shout louder about their attractions.

Idea

To demonstrate that Aruba really was the better destination for a perfect holiday, Juan Salvarredy, a top international photographer, was invited to the island. He took shots of all the most beautiful parts of the island and these were then uploaded to the major image banks in the world as royalty- free images anyone could use.

It did not take long before Aruba's competitors began using the images to sell their own countries. Once at least 12 other tourist destinations had passed off the images as photos of their own beaches, it was time to let the world know.

A YouTube video was created, showing how the images had been misappropriated and print ads and posters were created to let tourists know.

Results

Proving that even other countries believed Aruba was more beautiful led to an increase in tourism of 8%.

Our Thoughts

As a creative director of a big agency, I had to be fierce with all the designers about where they got their images.

We were sued by the artist Bridget Riley when someone used one of her abstract paintings as the background for a peanut butter ad. But designers are under pressure and, occasionally, they are lazy. This simple human truth is one we all recognise in ourselves. That’s what makes this idea hilarious. Incidentally, it also made Arubians(?) themselves proud of their small but very beautiful little paradise.