Tourism Ireland, responsible for marketing Ireland overseas, has launched two new viral videos on YouTube showcasing Dublin and Belfast. Their aim is to entice young couples or adult groups of tourists, whom they refer to as “social energizers,” to Ireland. With this campaign Tourism Ireland is focused primarily on the British market.

The #LoveDublin film – with the tongue-in-cheek title ‘Kiss Me I’m Irish’ – shows eight couples in iconic Dublin locations sharing a kiss.

Half of the participants are real couples, while half are total strangers who’d never met before. Viewers are invited to guess the real couples from the strangers, to create a score they can then share with friends on Facebook using the hashtag #LoveDublin.

The #PictureBelfast ‘Film vs App Challenge’ follows two budding photographers around some of Belfast’s top sites, one using a retro iPhone app and the other a vintage camera. Viewers have to guess whether the photo of each attraction is a crafted celluloid image developed by hand, or a filtered phone photo taken in five seconds. They are invited to share their guesses online using the hashtag #PictureBelfast.

Both films are designed to appeal to ‘social energisers’ – typically young couples or adult groups looking for excitement, new experiences and fun, social holidays, somewhere new and different. Tourism Ireland expects that each film will be seen by at least 250,000 people around Britain.

Vanessa Markey, Tourism Ireland’s head of Great Britain, said, “Our latest campaign should prove to be a great way for us to engage with our target audience of ‘social energizers,’ raising awareness of some of the many great, vibrant experiences on offer in both cities, really bringing our message of fun and excitement to life and inspiring them to put a trip to an Irish city on their ‘must do’ agenda for this autumn.

Both films use real couples and real photographers, with the quiz element at the end of the video designed to maximize online sharing. A specifically built landing page on Ireland.com is a further element of the campaign, which will run for four weeks.