Category Archives: Australia

I’m happy to announce, the little battler in the South, the island State of Tasmania, has come up trumps in the latest round to Tourism Video Marketing. My home state, Victoria, on the other hand, still won’t listen to industry advice, and continues to churn out expensive, irrelevant video campaigns that quickly disappear into the murky depths of the vast ocean of online video.

Tasmania Tourism has a marketing budget of $10.2 million compared to Tourism Victoria’s hefty $73.8 million. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Tasmania Tourism’s latest video campaign has been extremely cost effective, in fact, it only cost $5,000!

Tourism Tasmania sniffed the air, pardon the pun, and realised there is vast audience out there, who can make their own films, often better, and more cost effectively than would be the case if they employed a traditional ad agency.

The above film by Andrew Quaile won Tourism Tasmania’s 2012 Tasmanian Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival ‘Essence of Tasmania’ Competition. It takes one of Tasmania’s unique selling points, clean air, and markets it in a clever, engaging, humorous way.

“What about the foreign market, those who can’t speak english,” I hear you ask, “Wouldn’t it be better to do a campaign that doesn’t involve language?”

Well, in case you haven’t noticed, Australia is now one of the most expensive holiday destinations in the world! And, while the Australian economy is booming, many other countries, no longer even have economies! (a good chance to highlight some Australian comedy to the rest of the world)

So the great thing about the Tasmanian campaign is that it doesn’t forget the domestic market, it captures our quirky, self-depreciating humour and understands that for a vast majority of the world, Australia is just too damn expensive! So best to market to those who can afford it, other Australians!

Which brings me to Tourism Victoria’s latest campaign. A tired old music video format featuring the Great Ocean Road. Anyone ever heard of it, the Great Ocean Road? Of course you’ve heard of it, and seen numerous images of it’s great scenery, as you will see again, in the expensive production below ( I would estimate this production would cost at least five times more than the Tourism Tasmania video)

So which video, after a week online has engaged the audience? Well let’s look at the figures;

Views: Tasmania – 3885 views, Victoria – 171 views,

Likes: Tasmania – 26 likes, Victoria – 4 likes

Comments: Tasmania – 2 comments, Victoria – 0 comments.

Clearly the Tasmanian campaign is engaging the audience better. But please Tourism Tasmania, stop moderating the comments, open it up, the good and the bad, social media is about transparency, you have to be open to criticism. And with Youtube’s new algorithm, engagement, such as number of comments is important in how a video ranks in search.

And I can ensure you, 6 months from now, Tourism Victoria’s latest campaign will still be floundering, as did this confusing ‘music video’ by visit NSW. Six months, 77 views! Absolute waste of government funding. And what is message, Australia has magic mushrooms?

This is an example of Australian tourism marketing, but is relevant to any tourism body wishing to use video in their marketing arsenal. The important lesson; it doesn’t matter how much money you have at your disposal, this won’t guarantee success. What is of importance is that you understand your demographic and give them content that engages them.

Tasmania, with the lowest marketing budget of any state in Australia has given us a great example of how to make use of the changing media landscape. Travel Bloggers, Travel Vloggers, any tourist, can now have an influence on how your destination is viewed in the social media landscape. Tourism bodies have to understand this and accept this. In a crowded marketplace where everyone wants a piece of the global US$1,850 billion tourism industry, any publicity is good publicity. Spread your budget and engage your audience.