Tourism Australia dials up digital in a $250m global campaign via DDB Group Sydney
The latest phase of Tourism Australia’s global marketing campaign, There’s nothing like Australia, has been launched today in China with a strong focus on using digital channels, social media and advocacy to showcase Australia to the world.
At the heart of the A$250 million campaign, in partnership with industry, is a new short film featuring some of the country’s unique and most distinctive experiences, including the Bungle Bungles in The Kimberley, Sydney’s harbour, Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard and Hayman Islands, Freycinet in Tasmania and South Australia’s Kangaroo Island.
Directed by award winning Australian director Sean Meehan the film showcases examples of the country’s best tourism attractions, experiences and products.
The campaign will target both domestic and international audiences with the short film broadcasting on TV, cinema and online. The campaign will also be adapted for print and digital executions and have a comprehensive social media component in order to capitalise on Tourism Australia’s significant social media communities worldwide, including its three million global Facebook fans.
Says Nick Baker, Executive General Managing Consumer Marketing, Tourism Australia:
“When There’s nothing like Australia launched in 2010 it was created to be a longstanding, flexible campaign that would evolve to stay relevant to global consumers in today’s highly competitive global tourism environment. The first phase established the line, There’s nothing like Australia, and created the platform to firmly put the campaign into the markets. The job now is to prove that line, and show our domestic and international audiences what really differentiates us from the rest of the world.
“Today’s savvy traveller is increasingly searching for ‘best of’ experiences, and that includes the physical product, which is why we have taken the new step of including inspirational examples of Australian tourism’s best accommodation options and experiences within the ad.”
Baker said it was vital Tourism Australia continued to differentiate itself against the growing number of highly active national tourism organisations worldwide, and was achieving this through its leadership in digital, social media and advocacy activities.
As part of its commitment to utilising new technology to tell Australia’s story, Tourism Australia has created an interactive tablet application which is unique in both concept and content. With inspiring multimedia content and intuitive functionality, the application – developed by international software company PadWorx Digital Media Inc – showcases in further detail the locations featured in the ad.
Baker added: “With digital, we are able to quickly go from inspiration to information, and the new tablet and web hub do that, taking the story a little further, a little deeper in the online medium where travel decisions today are overwhelmingly made, and travel stories most told.”
He said that social media channels will be heavily used to allow advocates – including Tourism Australia’s ‘Friends of Australia’ – to share their travel experiences of Australia.
Baker concluded: “Part of our focus is to use word of mouth and digital advocacy to sell Australia. We know that stories bring people together and a large focus for this campaign is to use social and digital channels to allow people to share their experiences of our country.”
The new creative was developed by DDB Group Sydney. Says ECD Dylan Harrison: “Tourism Australia has the job of inspiring. There is an unparalleled power of film, moving images and sound to emotionally engage audiences, hence why it’s the core of this campaign.
“We really want people to feel why there is nothing like Australia, so our approach was to harness the drama of our unique cities and landscape. A delicate balance has been struck between these inspiring places and the people within it, so that neither is more dominant than the other. With this campaign we want Australians to feel a real mix of pride and awe around their country. With international visitors, it’s a mix of wonder and curiosity.”
The campaign has been developed in close collaboration with the tourism industry. Tourism Australia is providing industry and tourism operators with partnership opportunities and a range of marketing tools to allow them to align themselves with the campaign.
The A$250 million campaign will roll out in China, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia initially and will be active in 18 of Tourism Australia’s key markets by the end of 2012.
The soundtrack for the ad, ‘It’s like Love’, is co-written and performed by Australian singer-songwriter, Dewayne Everettsmith, and American viola player, Jasmine Beams. It was the result of a unique musical collaboration last year between the two musicians, who wrote the composition as part of Tourism Australia’s multi-award winning Making Tracks campaign.
13 Comments
Love the track
everything about this ad is boring, the song choice was terrible. The landscape shots are bland there are much better locations through out Australia they could have shot. The australian movie Rogue had better location shots than this ad. NOTHING about this ad is fun or exciting.
Saw it on air. Liked it. Nice work.
There might be nothing like it, but I feel like I’ve seen it all before.
Maybe that’s a good thing, might be part of the strategy.
But generally didn’t really surprise, and much of it didn’t seem that unique.
Still very pretty though, can’t say it isn’t visually appealing.
Would I travel galway around the world to see it?
Dunno.
I actually did feel real awe and then pride. Well done for your ability to reframe the cliched images we’ve seen time and time again. Its transformative. We truly are a blessed country. I’ve hardly seen any of it before. This really does make me want to. Hats off.
Stunning. I love it. Wish I had been the producer on this TVC. Makes me want to travel around Australia. Soundtrack is beautiful too.
Beautifully shot. Australia looks better when seen from a chopper……
Spectacular shots. No idea. Disconnected soundtrack. Probably a painful journey for agency and director who are probably in need of a holiday. In the end, multiple states get what they want to see, and because of it, Australia as a whole doesn’t quite the inspirational campaign it deserves.
Stunning images nice one Sean.
God awful music sadly.
Makes you wonder (in awe) how they scored Eddie Vedder for the Kangaroo Island campaign.
Ok, so there’s no idea in it. But as an Australian it made me want to travel and see more of my own country. So, job done. I guess?
An idea would just get in the way.
What part did the agency have in this creativily speaking? Surely any number of good directors could have delivered this and better without an agency’s involvement? Good media agency and good director and you’re off. This is a tragic representation of an agency. Greatest job in the world – yep needed an agency. Where the bloody hell are you – yes even that too. But this? Give me a C… R… A… P!
There’s nothing like Australia… There’s nothing like India… There’s nothing like Ireland.. There’s nothing like Afghanistan.. There’s nothing like Brazil… There’s nothing like……. see where I’m going with this? See if a junior or even if a student came up with this idea, it would’ve been blasted from the very moment the words are uttered because it’s terribly uncreative. BUT now it’s up and running with gazzillion $$$ behind the campaign, some creatives are raving about it?! ….. So in the words of our fallen brothers from RIM… WAKE UP.