In a fiercely competitive post-pandemic tourism industry, VisitBritain needed a way to stand out from the crowd to boost travel from two of its most valuable inbound visitor markets: KSA and the UAE.

So with the global spotlight on the King’s historic coronation and several of its iconically royal backdrops (such as Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey) - we were tasked with capitalising on this buzz to showcase Britain’s rich heritage, inspire wanderlust, and ultimately drive visitors from KSA and UAE to consider exploring the nation’s enchanting landscapes and ‘see things differently’ in Britain.

With these objectives in mind, we created “The Great British Quiz”, an interactive Snapchat Lens designed to highlight Britain's most iconic destinations with ties to royalty.

Harnessing the power of augmented reality, this gamified Lens put users' knowledge of Britain to the test, allowing them to answer questions to be visually transported across the nation’s unique heritage sites, before claiming their royal sash and crown.

Once the digital quiz is completed, users were treated to a bespoke travel recommendation and called to click through to the VisitBritain website to learn more about exploring Britain.

In 2023, Snapchat boasted +75 Million unique users in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia alone ranking highest (6th globally) with 21.2 million users; underscoring the platform’s unparalleled reach and influence in these regions.

Therefore to engage our target audience of 18+ travellers across the UAE and KSA, we created a highly interactive augmented reality (AR) Lens engineered with cutting-edge machine learning (ML) components to personalise the digital experience.

Going beyond the functionality of conventional AR Lenses, ‘The Great British Quiz’ uses ML to seamlessly distort the user’s facial expression into a crying face each time a question is answered incorrectly.

This integration added moments of unexpected delight to the experience, driving longer Lens playtimes in both English and Arabic.

To create an experience that was equal parts engaging, educational and intriguing - users were taken through a set of questions designed to test their knowledge of British culture and destination, and help them to literally visualise themselves in each location.

With each correctly answered question, celebratory trumpets and confetti would appear around the user. While each incorrectly answered question tapped into ML technology to transform the user’s facial expression into a crying face complete with a downpour of British rain. This playful differentiation enabled deeper levels of engagement with the Lens, before awarding users with their own royal crown and driving them to click through to a dedicated VisitBritain website to learn more about exploring Britain.

“The Great British Quiz” Lens was released on Snapchat for a total of 3 weeks targeting our audience in both English and Arabic.

This campaign generated remarkable results across the UAE and KSA, reaching over 3.3 million Snapchatters in just 3 weeks, which exceeded expectations by 344% in KSA and 222% in the UAE.

Tangible engagement was seen with users remaining on the Lens to play for an unprecedented amount of time, surpassing the industry benchmark playtime by 46.6% in Arabic & 13.3% in English. Achieving a total of 25,700 Lens shares & 18,344 saves.

We also observed outstanding click through rates from both regions converting a whopping 80,000 individuals to click through to the VisitBritain website to learn more.

These outcomes not only demonstrate the campaign's widespread resonance but also highlight its effectiveness in capturing attention, driving interest, and surpassing key performance indicators in both markets.