How do you promote Thailand when international news has spent months showing protests, bombs and buildings in flames?

That was the challenge facing the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

Months of political unrest had devastated tourism. CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera had shown the world protests, explosions and downtown Bangkok burning.

The obvious response was to show Thailand's beautiful beaches, temples and culture. But pretty pictures couldn't erase what people had already seen.

So we did the opposite.

Instead of convincing first-time visitors that Thailand was safe, we reached out to people who had already been here.

They remembered the Thailand behind the headlines. The warmth of its people. The experiences they'd enjoyed. The Land of Smiles they knew.

They didn't need to discover Thailand. They just needed to remember it.

We couldn't ask people to forget what they'd seen. So we asked them to remember what they'd experienced.

I created this campaign as a Creative Director at McCann.

Funny thing is, I never got the easy tourism brief. The one with beautiful beaches, temples and food.

I got this one. And I'm glad I did.