Kangaroo Island’s ‘Let Yourself Go’ campaign increases awareness via Adelaide’s kwp!

The first figures in on kwp! Advertising’s ‘Let Yourself Go’ Kangaroo Island campaign for the South Australian Tourism Commission show awareness, consideration and behaviour measures have all shot up (data is provided by the South Australian Tourism Commission and BDA Marketing and Planning, measured with a minimum of 3 months surveying).

New research shows 41% of the domestic audience and 52% of the main target market are now more likely to take a holiday to Kangaroo Island when, prior to the campaign, 43% had little or no awareness of the island at all.

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The South Australian Tourism Commission has also observed a 127% increase in visitation to its Kangaroo Island webpage, compared to the same quarter last year.

Awareness of the ‘Let Yourself Go’ campaign in Sydney and Melbourne was measured at 29%, with 68% of the target marketing describing it as having high appeal.

Speaking recently in Adelaide, head of Tourism Australia Andrew McEvoy said the advertising currently coming out of South Australia is “the best I’ve ever seen.”

kwp! joint managing partner John Baker says this is thanks to the campaign’s emotional pull combined with its high level execution.

Says Baker: “Our brief was to capture the sense of freedom and transformation you experience on Kangaroo Island and to communicate that in an inspiring way.

“The first step was to engage people emotionally, which we did largely through the television commercial, as well as via print and online content developed cooperatively with Fairfax. The next steps, which we are still building on, have included incorporating retail advertising, editorial coverage, social media activity and other methods focussed on conversion.”

The media strategy behind the campaign was developed by Ikon Adelaide, which formed from a partnership agreement with kwp! and Ikon Australia earlier this year.

Adelaide director of media Natalie Morley says the Ikon relationship reinforces kwp!’s longstanding position that media and creative teams should work closely and collaboratively.

Says Morley: “Via the Ikon partnership, we were able to access specialised expertise for developing the media channel strategy, as well as gain insights into the target market’s most receptive moments using proprietary Ikon research.”

The centrepiece of the ongoing Kangaroo Island campaign is a television commercial loosely inspired by the children’s book ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, shot by Jeff Darling with music from Eddie Vedder.

Other components have included editorial projects with Fairfax’s Good Weekend, an episode of MasterChef filmed on KI and an extensive social media campaign, elements of which have prompted discussion in the broader public sphere.

The MasterChef episode attracted more than a million viewers with data showing 87% found the content very appealing and 46% now considering a KI holiday.

Creative Director: James Rickard

Sound Engineer: Scott Illingworth – Best FX