Tourism Victoria brings Melbourne to the world via a real-time experiment via Clemenger BBDO
Production Company Tool and director Jason Zada have teamed up with Exit Films and Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne to develop a crowdsourced live streaming travel guide for Tourism Victoria.
The Melbourne Remote Control Tourist will bring the sights, sounds, streets, people and unique experiences of Melbourne to a global audience in real time via social media. Facebook and Twitter users can log on to the Remote Control Tourist website and control what a team of urban explorers with helmet-mounted streaming video cameras are doing. They can check out their Instagram feeds, track their location using Google Maps or FourSquare and get them to delve into any fascinating nook or cranny.
The Remote Control Tourist will run two live streams for a total of eight hours a day from October 9 to 13.
Explains Tool director Jason Zada: “In order to bring the world to Melbourne, we’re bringing Melbourne to the world. This goes beyond stationary Webcams and errant social media posts, bringing everything together in a way that potential visitors to Melbourne can take control of and understand. We were enormously pleased to work with all parties involved to give anyone with an Internet connection a way to explore this awesome city themselves.”
Tool and its digital team created a number of proprietary technologies to support the innovations required for a project such as this. They leveraged the Google Maps API to create a custom map that shows real-time tracking of the RCT’s (for over 500 locations) and built a custom GPS tracking system that works in iOS. The scale and amount of content being featured on the site required Tool to carefully design a data-scraping strategy and notification plan: They used Node.js to notify users when new content was available, and to allow them to chat and make requests to the RCTs. With social media conversation at the core of the experience, Tool leveraged its proprietary social media software to allow the production teams to monitor Tweets and Facebook posts in real time.
The RCTs will be live online from 9 – 13 October.
Agency: Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne
Creative Chairman: James McGrath
Executive Creative Director: Ant Keogh
Creative Directors: Julian Schreiber and Tom Martin
Senior Creative Team: Luke Thompson and Clark Edwards
Client Service Director: Simon Lamplough
Group Account Director: Brett Williams
Account Director: Kate Forster
Account Manager: Magda Pabich
Executive Producer: Sonia von Bibra
Digital Creative: Pete Hutchison
Data Strategist: Carl Oldham
Senior Digital Producer: Louise Sergent
Tourism Victoria
Chief Executive Officer: Leigh Harry
General Manager, Destination & Product Marketing: Dorana Wirne
Group Manager Brand Strategy & Advertising: Nicole Bradley
Manager Melbourne Marketing: Dylan Reed
Manager Advertising & Media Services: Natasha Rowson
eMarketing Manager: Michael Hauser
Managing Editor – Digital: Andrea Trimble
Social Media Manager: Phil Lees
Social Media Community Manager: Andy McGinniss
Senior Melbourne Marketing Coordinator: Tania Mikolajczak
Acting Group Manager Destination Communications: Lisa Hunt
24 Comments
i like it.
As for user experience, it’s not that great.
So why would I want to go before I go? Isn’t that the whole fun of travelling – to be surprised and delighted?
this is freaking great
Didn’t M&C do this last year?????
Taken straight from the pages of last quarter’s Contagious Magazine.
So , provided you have online access, some time to waste, and have found the site.
With a fast broadband connection, you can have someone that you don’t know tell you that the laksa they are consuming at Mamak tastes really nice.
Sounds like well-cooked bollocks to me.
And it works really well from a ux point of view.
Ripper.
This is sweet.
It’s great to see such a cool idea make it through what surely was a phalanx of nay sayers. Well done for pulling it off and well done Tourism Vic!
Fabulous idea.
big idea. poor experience.
I got on excitedly only to sit in on a 5 minute conversation about macaroons while experiencing POV of someone eating them. Is that my Melbourne experience?
Sometimes just because the technology enables us to do it, doesn’t mean we should.
Just tried it. He was in Royal Arcade, looking up at statues that may have been in view for him, but not in frame for us…Then going into shops and saying “Oh, what’s that you sell? That’s nice…” As exciting as going shopping with your partner, but I daresay a bit more costly. Chalk it up to good on paper, not so good on execution.
I find this annoying. Would you not rather discover stuff for yourself or through friends as opposed to via some toss pot on the web with a fucking stupid and conspicuous camera stuck to his idiotic scone?
Ooh, lane ways. oooh cafes. ooh pho. ooh little nooky-cranny clothes shops.
oooohh for fucks sake!
SMH seem to like it
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/melbourne-tourists-put-on-remotecontrol-in-new-campaign-20131008-2v61h.html
A gen y idea with no depth.
Good name. Not good anything else.
Spent a good 20 minutes on it last night. Sure some parts were boring but i giggled like a school girl when she answered my question.
‘Hey other creative, i saw this cool thing a few years ago that could work’
‘But if it’s been done, we can’t do it again’
‘no, that’s the best part. Only advertising people saw it’
‘Awesome! They even have the case study done for us too!’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9laggWeXIs
Best travel site I’ve ever seen…this will work
Where’s our beautiful, stylish, sophisticated city??? This makes Melbourne look as shite as the weather! Doubt this is going to do much for tourism. Which is probably a good thing because I hate having to line up for my morning coffee.
Digital technology killed the Tourism star
Best travel site I’ve ever seen…this will work
@What have they done
Truth hurts I guess…
Again, Ogilvy Cape Town did an did an idea like this last year for Cape Town Tourism.
It also caned it at award shows.