This last Saturday at La Cabaña I overheard a conversation (yeah, with all the loud music) about the videos of ATP's (former IPAT) new campaign: it will never leave you. If you're passionate about Panama's tourism you can understand how my radar caught that.
I hadn't seen those videos so today I did a search on Google for Panama Videos and I couldn't find any new videos launched by the ATP (Autoridad de Turismo de Panamá, former IPAT). I then went to YouTube and did a search for Panama and at the end of the first page I saw the snippet of a video that looked official posted by thinkpanama (most of the videos from this user were related to Real Estate so I wasn't really interested in the rest of his videos)... so I said to myself: ATP does have new videos about Panama but they seem to be a secret because not that many people have heard about them (or seen them).
After an hour or so of watching videos about Panama that I hadn't seen before I bumped into this YouTube user called Visit Panama who has 18 videos. And guess what? This user has been around for almost a year and some of his videos have less than 50 views: incredible! And this user only had 2 subscribers! The last video I posted on YouTube (which is actually a photo slide) has more views than Visit Panama's most watched video... in less than half of the time! Check some of them out below.
All of this makes me wonder: how much did it cost to produce these videos and why aren't the being properly promoted? I mean they are lot better then the last videos made by ATP that focused on Panama's City casinos and shopping malls. For one thing they have footage from a lot more places within Panama. I have to say that the "Extreme" video makes me a bit sleepy, maybe it's just lack of experience filming Eco-Adventure activities. The truth is the only "fast" videos are about Panama City... the rest are a bit slow. I bet that whoever made these videos is from Panama City and Panama City is still the star of these videos (if you don't believe me check out the main video of the campaign just below) but hopefully we are starting to see signs that ATP is realizing that Panama's true long term, sustainable, eco-friendly tourism potential is everywhere else besides Panama City.
Why hasn't ATP done a couple of basic things so that more people out there can watch these videos? They only have to do a couple of simple things like post the videos on their highly ranked (but not really well designed) websites. Hopefully these videos are being used in some mega international campaigns. I hope this post helps promote these videos.
What do you think of ATP's new videos? What do you think about the campaign's slogan? Do you know how these videos are being used? How could ATP use these videos to promote Panama a lot more? In your opinion, which are the best videos about Panama that you have ever seen?
EDIT: I forgot to mention that at least in my opinion the videos about Panama's beaches and islands do look very cool...