Australian tourism campaigns have often been in the news, sometimes for good reasons attracting attention, other times questions about the campaigns including the most recent ‘Philausophy‘.
Tourism Australia Marketing Campaigns (Image copyright Pexels)
‘The ‘Philausophy’ campaign is self-indulgent wank, and a crime against Australia
Tourism Australia’s latest ‘Philausophy’ campaign has “desecrated” Australia and is appalling, self-indulgent wank, according to creative director and senior copywriter Mark Farrelly.
November 1, 2019 10:52
by MARK FARRELLY
What happens when you give a government department $38m dollars of our money? You get a pile of self-indulgent wank that’s an embarrassment to our nation.
You would think after the unmitigated disaster that was ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’, Tourism Australia would have learnt a lesson. But clearly, it did not.
The campaign after that was completely forgettable. Can you remember it? Bet you can’t. It passed like a ship in the night. The only thing memorable about it was the fact its weak, pathetic slogan was grammatically wrong.
There’s nothing like Australia? No people. Australia is a place. A location. It is somewhere, not something.
There’s nowhere like Australia would have made sense. I’m not saying that’s great. But it’s okay.
Rule one of tourism advertising: you are advertising a destination.
So it’s not surprising that when you have a team of people so unable to use even basic English, they are going to come up with something even more appalling than before…
…The campaign after that was completely forgettable. Can you remember it? Bet you can’t. It passed like a ship in the night. The only thing memorable about it was the fact its weak, pathetic slogan was grammatically wrong.
There’s nothing like Australia? No people. Australia is a place. A location. It is somewhere, not something.
There’s nowhere like Australia would have made sense. I’m not saying that’s great. But it’s okay.
Rule one of tourism advertising: you are advertising a destination.
So it’s not surprising that when you have a team of people so unable to use even basic English, they are going to come up with something even more appalling than before.’
What had happened before?
‘Tourism Australia looks beyond ‘controversial campaign‘
‘”Where the bloody hell are you?” has gone the way of the “shrimp on the barbie” – into the dustbin of advertising history.
It is two years since the Government unveiled the confrontational slogan to sledge people into coming to Australia, and now it is being dropped.
The $180 million campaign generated much publicity around the world but did not generate any major increase in visitor numbers.
Tourism Australia is also set to review its contracts with advertising agencies as it opens one of the country’s largest advertising accounts to tender.’
What is the issue or challenge round tourism marketing?
“The Best Job in the World” & Beyond in a Brave New Marketing World
“Not since Willy Wonka and the golden tickets hidden in chocolate bars, has something come along like this.” Editor, The Sunday Times, United Kingdom
Investing heavily in content but not communication channels to reach prospective tourists, however, Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the World’ did gain attention globally through having travellers create the content.
The challenge was to convey to the rest of the world, in an already saturated global travel market, that surrounding this vibrant living organism was tangible product and a new tourism story for Australia…
….By the end of 2008 the groundwork was laid, the tourism regions and operators along the 2300 kilometre of the Great Barrier Reef had come on board under the “Islands of the Great Barrier Reef” banner, we had agreement from our international travel partners to start including Islands of the Great Barrier Reef product into their packages and marketing collateral had been produced. Now all we needed was an idea or a “hook” to sell the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef to the world.
Stage two was the big idea itself. Brisbane-based creative agency SapientNitro was given a brief to devise a campaign to promote the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. While several ideas were floated we realised that “The Best Job in the World” was The One; a dream job offering one candidate something priceless, the role of Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef with six months to explore the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef while based in a luxury house on Hamilton Island for a pay cheque of AUD150,000.
While the caretaker’s duties, cleaning the pool, feeding the fish and collecting the mail, were tongue-in-cheek, for the campaign to work, it needed to be a real job…..
….Then on a cold January morning they opened up the newspaper or turned on the television and were hit by a ray of Queensland sunshine; an advertisement for “the best job in the world” with the initial criteria of “anyone can apply”. The application process simply asked people from around the world to submit a one minute video of themselves telling Tourism Queensland why they deserved the best job in the world….
….On 6 May 2009, Ben Southall, a 34-year-old British charity events organiser, was announced as the successful candidate for “the best job in the world”. In the first 24 hours of his announcement as the successful candidate, Ben undertook more than 100 media interviews and featured in news stories around the globe.
Two months later on 1 July 2009, Ben started his role as the Caretaker for the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. During his stint he visited almost 100 Queensland destinations, fielded more than 450 media interviews and posted more than 60 blogs of 75,000 words, 2,000 photographs, 47 video diaries and more than 1,000 tweets….
….The estimated publicity value of the campaign topped AUD430 million and penetrated almost every country on earth. Not bad for an investment of around AUD4 million over the three-year life of the campaign.’
Ongoing issue of direct communication with prospective tourists
Campaign fantastic but let down by one oversight by QLD Tourism, no direct channel via their global web presence to contact or make an enquiry in one’s own language, locally. However, this is where Tourism Australia has been quietly creating a global web presence and physically through local travel and related representatives trained as ‘Aussie Specialists’ with resources made available online via ‘Aussie Specialists Club’.
As important, mostly ignored, are the significant digital marketing resource created by Aussie Specialists developing their own web presence targeting geographic, cultural and linguistic regions.
Result?
Most related web searches would find the relevant Tourism Australia website then finding travel planning and an Aussie Specialist travel agent would only be three clicks away; digital marketing 101.
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