Short hop or a giant step?

by Marketing ON 20 September 2012

Campaign: Kiwi Sceptics

Client: Air New Zealand

Agency: Host

Background

The Australia to New Zealand trans-Tasman route is of huge strategic importance to Air New Zealand’s business. Unlike Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin, which have significant operations in the lucrative Australian domestic and Asian markets, Air New Zealand relies on the trans-Tasman route to significantly contribute to the business’ overall bottom line.

New Zealand is an incredible country. You would think that the average Australian would be flocking to such a stunning place. But Air New Zealand faces a huge challenge on this route.

An Air New Zealand tracking study conducted by TNS found that while around five million Australians consider going to New Zealand every year, fewer than one in five actually do. The facts speak for themselves. The simple truth is that Australians always find an excuse to put off going to New Zealand on holiday, including ‘I’ll go when I am older’, ‘I will go somewhere less rainy’ and ‘It’s just like Australia’.

Objectives

Host was tasked with developing a campaign that would tackle the problem head on and actively encourage people to go to New Zealand on holiday.

Given this challenge, Air New Zealand and Host set a number of broad campaign objectives:

Generate an uplift in bookings (visitors) and revenue to New Zealand for Air New Zealand,
enhance the appeal of New Zealand as a destination among Australians, and
enhance the appeal of Air New Zealand as the airline of choice among Australians.

Hipster

Strategy

Clearly we would need to prove to our audience that New Zealand is a holiday destination that they shouldn’t put off going to any longer. So why were they not booking trips? The bottom line is that they weren’t going there because deep down they didn’t really believe it would provide a suitably unique or different holiday experience.

We would need to find a compelling way of convincing our audience of the merit of a holiday to New Zealand.

In the course of strategy development, research revealed a fascinating fact: New Zealand has some of the most satisfied holiday-makers in the world:

99% of Australian holidaymakers would be willing to recommend a trip to New Zealand to a friend, and
97% of Australian holidaymakers who go to New Zealand want to go back there on holiday again.

Given the country delivers such an amazing holiday experience, why were so many Australians so reluctant to book a trip? The answer was simple yet strategically powerful: potential visitors were completely unaware of the incredible, transformative impact of a holiday in New Zealand.

This thought led directly to our proposition: ‘You will be transformed by going on holiday to New Zealand’.

Aussie

Execution

The creative solution took the strategic proposition of ‘You will be transformed by going on holiday to New Zealand’ and both dramatised and exaggerated it by focusing on the most resistant. The non-believers. The people who wouldn’t go to New Zealand in a million years.

If we could prove to such a sceptical audience that New Zealand is an incredible country, we could prove it to anyone.

Introducing the Kiwi Sceptics

We created an online reality show called the Kiwi Sceptics, which documented the journey of Air New Zealand’s attempts to convert four Australians into New Zealand advocates. We found four real Australians who all said that they wouldn’t go to New Zealand in a million years and set out to change their mind. The sceptics were made up of Australian holiday-maker stereotypes: Bali Girl, The Hipster, The Europhile and a True Blue Aussie.

But, first we had to get them on an aeroplane, so we told them they were going to their dream destinations, before surprising them with the fact that they were actually going to New Zealand. Needless to say, they weren’t happy. The journeys that followed became the basis for our show.

The Sceptics were not easily turned. But Air New Zealand enlisted the help of Kiwi guides who knew New Zealand inside out. Slowly but surely our guides, Air New Zealand and New Zealand itself worked their charm. We showed them all the awesome places, friendships were formed and our sceptics began to believe that New Zealand truly is an incredible holiday destination.

The show consistently reinforced our key message that even the biggest of sceptics would be transformed by a holiday to New Zealand, proving to our audience that New Zealand wasn’t a trip they should continue to put off.

Telling the world

We created an online hub on Ninemsn, so everyone could see the Kiwi Sceptics come out of the closet as lovers of everything Kiwi. The hub provided people with more information about the Sceptics’ itineraries as well as flight information and special New Zealand travel promotions.

Press and banner ads pulled people into our content and our ‘Dob in a Sceptic’ social campaign helped people to share it around. Our episodes were also broadcast in cinemas and on YouTube. We also used our former Kiwi Sceptics as spokespeople to preach to their ‘Kiwi Sceptic’ brethren in Australia in PR and advertising.

Creating a special winter edition

Given the success of our earlier episodes, Air New Zealand launched a special Winter edition featuring Lara Bingle as the Kiwi Sceptic. Given Bingle had no interest in New Zealand and had even been used to promote another destination, we would have a challenge on our hands. But Bingle was blown away by Queenstown where her guide showed her the best of what New Zealand skiing had to offer. Not only was the episode released online, but Bingle’s Channel 10 reality show Being Lara Bingle integrated her involvement with Kiwi Sceptics into the storyline of two episodes, reaching an average audience of 706,000.

Lara Bingle

Results

1. The campaign has already generated a significant ROI

We have already seen an ROI of over two dollars per advertising dollar spent. This revenue is directly attributable to the campaign, as it has all been measured by retargeting those who have seen the campaign with travel offers for Air New Zealand.

The tactical sale campaigns, which supported the campaign, saw Air New Zealand break its own records for revenue recorded in Australia.

Furthermore, the nature of the tourism and airline industry means that campaign effectiveness usually needs to be evaluated over the six-month post-campaign period. The campaign only came to a close in April, so we expect to see the ROI significantly increase in the future when we have the opportunity to do further campaign analysis.

2. The campaign pulled in a huge audience

The episode views reached 922,000 on Ninemsn and YouTube. The campaign also saw us generate over 20,000 additional Facebook fans, an increase of 66%. Furthermore, Lara Bingle’s New Zealand story was featured on her reality TV show, which pulled in an additional 706,000 viewers. The campaign has generated over $818,000 worth of PR coverage.

3. The campaign enhanced the appeal of New Zealand and Air New Zealand

The appeal of ‘feeling positive towards New Zealand as a holiday destination’ peaked at 53% during the campaign. The brand preference score for Air New Zealand peaked at 48% during the campaign.

But perhaps our proudest achievement of all is that we managed what many in Australia would consider nigh on ‘impossible’. We found the biggest Kiwi Sceptics in the country and turned them into New Zealand’s biggest fans.

cmw13

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SA Tourism’s cash for comment

by Frances Ward ON 24 April 2012

I love Media Watch. Every week it presents a well-researched, entertaining look at a few of the hiccups, lies, blunders and contradictions that took place in our media landscape the week prior. And what a great show it was this week.

Even if you missed Media Watch on Monday night, you almost certainly would have seen the resulting reports in the press about SA Tourism’s ‘cash for tweets’ scandal. In a nutshell, SA Tourism has come under scrutiny for paying celebrities about $750 to tweet about Kangaroo Island. There’s a little more to the story but not too much more than that.

What I found so interesting and poignant about this story is that it’s thrown the spotlight on a PR and advertising issue that’s been lurking in the shadows for some time. The writing has been on the wall since social media blasted into our lives years ago – it was only a matter of time before a prominent organisation offered cash reward for celebrity endorsement via Twitter or Facebook under the guise of it being organic or natural. And in my opinion, all parties involved were always going to come off looking guilty of deceit.

My biggest beef with a communication strategy like this is that it works against what I presume SA Tourism fundamentally wanted to achieve: positive, social media banter about Kangaroo Island amongst as many people as possible. A ‘cash for comment’ type arrangement was never going to go undetected (thanks Media Watch) and so the strategy was flawed from the get-go.

SA Tourism argues that it was just getting the conversation started and that its strategy was product placement. I’d like to suggest that this theory is a little hard to swallow, especially when the PR agency involved in the campaign issues a blatant request for celeb endorsement that should not appear ‘endorsed’ but rather present as an ‘organic’ tweet. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Perhaps there’s a lesson in this for celebrity publicists and celebrities themselves too. The celebs that jumped on board ended up looking rather deceitful too and well, a little hard up for cash. Another negative connotation attached to this campaign, in my view.

But moving on…I think this story serves best as a reminder to be careful about the tactics we choose to embrace during a campaign and whether or not they stay true to our communication and marketing goals. Social media has created a raft of new engagement opportunities but I think it’s easy to become swept up in its ease of accessibility. Just like any other channel of communication there are some important, unwritten rules and considerations to play by if you’re going to make it work for you and your company.

I’d be interested in my peers’ opinions about whether they’d consider this a pure product placement scenario so please come forth and share your views. Perhaps I’m too cynical or altruistic in my outlook? But how do you compare this to Alan Jones’ ‘cash for comment’ scandal?

Regardless of where the truth lies, I come back to the issue of making sure your tactics engender the desired goals and response. Because I’m pretty damn sure that the resulting shroud of grey cloud hanging over this campaign and SA’s Kangaroo Island isn’t the ideal outcome for the tourism body.

Image attribution: Marco Fedele

10 digital strategies for Aussie tourism marketers

by Yvette Adams ON 30 January 2012

With the arrival of the National Broadband Network (NBN) throughout Australia, a whole new realm of possibilities are presented to a variety of sectors. Recently I had the pleasure of speaking at the eTourism Innovation Forum on the Gold Coast to a wide variety of tourism operators.

Australian tourism is a $94.7 billion industry that employs half a million Australians and involves 54,608 businesses. In the 2010/2011 financial year, the tourism industry represented 2.5% of Australia’s GDP at a value of approximately $35 billion to the national economy.

Due to the GFC, parity with the US dollar, and a bunch of natural disasters, many international travellers from traditional markets are staying home, while record numbers of Aussies take advantage of the high dollar to head overseas.

Given the dire situation, as far as I can see, the best the tourism sector can do is market themselves, and market well. And making the most of digital marketing opportunities presented by the advent of the NBN should be a big part of that plan.

Here are 10 digital marketing strategies I recommended at the recent event for the tourism sector, many of which will apply to any business:

Strategy #1: You must have a website, but don’t just design for the web…

Having a website that displays well on mobiles devices is becoming more and more important as 50% of Australians now have a smartphone and a huge percentage of them access the internet on their mobile devices. When mobile optimising your site, there are a variety of factors to consider. To find out more about optimising your website for mobile and tablet devices see this article.

Strategy #2: Make it easier for people to get the information they want

Do you like text chatting to friends on MSN, Facebook or Skype? Would you find it convenient to do the same thing on a tourism website you are browsing – say an accommodation place you are thinking of staying at?

Live chat is a great and affordable technology which would lend itself extremely well to the tourism sector, yet hardly any operators use it.

Save yourself the drawn-out games of phone tag trying to return calls to prospective customers and the endless emails. Seal the deal there and then with a live chat solution. I’m quite a fan of Zopim, though we’re currently trialling LiveChat.

Strategy #3: Let people book and pay 24/7

Continuing in the vein of making it quick and easy for people browsing our site to make a decision, it makes complete sense for tourism operators (and many other businesses) to offer facilities to check availability, book and pay online. Yet a huge number of tourism operators in Australia do not have this functionality in place. For example, less than 10% of operators listed on visitvictoria.com have online booking available to consumers.

There are a wide variety of online booking tools. The trick is finding the right one for you. Tourism Queensland has launched an online booking selection wizard, known as The Wiz which is worth checking out. You may also like the Tourism Exchange Australia (also known as TXA or ‘the Exchange’), a new national platform for the online distribution of accommodation, attraction, tour and event products.

Strategy #4: Encourage sharing on your site

These days the average Facebook user has 220 friends alone. Add social sharing buttons (as opposed to links to your Facebook brand page) to your site or blog and enable the ability for browsers on your website to ‘like’, comment on, tweet or share your page. Some leading social sharing websites to check out include sharethis.com, addthis.com and tweetmeme.com.

Strategy #5: Get smartphone savvy

Once upon a time, travellers would duck into internet cafes and jot an email home. These days they travel equipped with internet enabled mobile phones and tablets. This is something that can and must be considered when marketing to the modern day traveller. For instance they may leave purchasing decisions until much later, such as where they will travel to next, or stay the night, or eat out for dinner! If you are not well positioned on Google Maps, key directories and location based marketing tools (see strategy 10 for more), you have no chance of gaining crucial market share.

Strategy #6: Make an app and use apps to your advantage

Apps solve everyday problems and any savvy tourism operator would do well to spend some time discovering apps which may solve some of their problems, or those of their clients! This is a great article about app concept design, marketing and monetisation to get you started.

Strategy #7: Get social media savvy, quick!

Plenty of businesses have created a Facebook Page (some even a Facebook Profile in their business name – a breach of Facebook’s policy) and said they’re ‘doing social media’. At the talk I went through a checklist of things you should consider if you really want to get social media savvy. In short, you should have a social media strategy policy, get trained in social media and keep updated in social media if you want to stay in business.

Strategy #8: Use video to promote your attraction/location/place

Tourism is an extremely visual and emotive product and what better way than video to showcase the destination, attraction or location. In a future article I’ll go into video in more depth but for now trust me on the fact that if you’re in tourism, you should be using video to market your business.

Strategy #9: Connect with the right people the easy way

Targeting the corporate traveller? Hoping to connect with people from the education sector who might bring students to your age-appropriate or educational tourist attraction? Make LinkedIn your best friend. Using their advanced search function you can search by industry, location and many other criteria. Hit search and there is your hit list in one convenient list. No more painful door knocking, expensive advertising or trade shows.

Strategy #10: Check out the ‘check in’

Location based marketing is so relevant to the tourism sector. If you consider that the tourism sector is defined by industry products such as gifts and souvenirs, accommodation, cafes and restaurants, food and alcohol, cultural, historic and sporting venues and events, you’ll understand that these are all physical locations that the owner wants potential customers to know and frequent. Location based marketing includes social networks such as Foursquare, Facebook Places and more obscure ones such as OINK.

Importantly, Foursquare in particular offers tourism operators the ability to run a great loyalty program without silly coupons or loyalty cards. Simply list your venue, verify the listing and then start offering specials and tips and encouraging people to check in by promoting prompts to do so through signage at your premises and when dealing with customers.

Reward repeat or regular visitors and they’ll love you and your business for it!

Film yourself on NYE to star in Tourism Australia campaign [UPDATED]

by Marketing ON 2 January 2012

Updated 2 January 2012 to include resulting video

Tourism Australia and the City of Sydney will release a short film made from user-generated video of New Year’s Eve experiences as part of a campaign to promote Sydney as a prime destination for tourists to visit in the new year.

The film, to be titled ‘Project:12′, will be created overnight and released on Tourism Australia’s YouTube channel and Facebook and Twitter pages in the early hours of New Year’s Day before many other parts of the world reach their own 2012 countdown.

The digital campaign is facilitated via the City of Sydney’s NYE iPhone app which allows users to upload 12-second clips of their new year celebrations.

Executive general manager of marketing for Tourism Australia, Nick Baker, tells Marketing the user generated content approach lends itself well to the tourism space and also to the nature of Australians.

“The level of interaction and interest from Australians in the Nothing Like Australia campaign was great with over 41,000 photos uploaded,” Bakers says.

“Australians love talking about the country so it [user generated content] is a natural sweet spot for us.”

On managing the quality and amount of content received Baker says the team ensures their pre work is done which for this campaign included mapping out the key themes that they’re looking for and preparing a story line.

The app only allows people to upload footage in 12 second blocks, which we feel is enough to get a nugget of their new year’s story,” Baker says.

The campaign aims to capture the shared experience and emotion of welcoming in the new year with friends and family against the backdrop of Sydney’s fireworks display.

Tourism Australia is giving away a BridgeClimb gift certificate for the best video clip submitted.

The initiative is part of a Tourism Australia and City of Sydney joint venture to show the world why there’s nothing like celebrating New Year’s Eve in Sydney, Australia.

UPDATE 2 January 2012:

And here’s the resulting video:

If you can’t see the video above, please refresh this page.

Homepage image courtesy of Hai Linh Truong, via Flickr

Brand USA to sell America to the world

by Marketing ON 11 November 2011

The United States of America’s overarching travel body has launched a new name, logo, website and campaign to market the nation as a whole for the first time.

Formerly the Corporation for Travel Promotion, the body tasked with encouraging travellers from all over the world to visit America is now known as Brand USA.

Launched last week, the new website, discoveramerica.com, is a showcase of destinations within the USA, and displays the new pixellated, multicoloured ‘USA’ logo, itself a far cry from the brash red, white and blue stars and stripes often associated with the country.

The unveiling of discoveramerica.com represents a soft launch for an international campaign, planned to fully kick off in early 2012, in an effort to increase overseas visitor numbers to the country.

Queensland, where Australia shines?

by Marketing ON 30 September 2010

Tourism Queensland has revealed a new tagline as part of its $4 million tourism marketing campaign.

The tagline, ‘Queensland, Where Australia Shines’, was launched by premier Anna Bligh and tourism minister Peter Lawler on the Gold Coast this week. According to a Cairns.com.au report, Tourism Queensland interviewed more than 6000 Australians on their views of holidays and destinations in Queensland.

The multi-channel campaign includes TVCs, print ads and outdoor media utilising the new tagline to promote ‘shining moments’ in Queensland. A global social media campaign is also anticipated which includes the Queensland Holidays website and Queensland Facebook Page.

Brand Oz detrimental for B2B

by Marketing ON 2 August 2010

Tourism advertising and branding of Australia is negatively impacting those exporting technology and innovation, reported Kimon Lycos of Mihell and Lycos, a firm specialising in B2B.

Lycos, also adjunct Professor at RMIT University, conducted 50 interviews with Australian CEOs of mid to small businesses, attempting to understand how companies believe they can be more competitive when exporting and commercialising technology for global markets.

An overwhelming response from the survey was the continual positioning of Australia as the joker in the pack, said Lycos. 89% were dissatisfied with the high profile advertising campaigns such as Paul Hogan’s ‘Throw a shrimp on the barbie’, then the ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ campaign and now the song and dance, ‘There’s nothing like Australia.’

“If the world was a town, then Australians are, by our own voice, known as the village idiot,” said Lycos. “It is very difficult to export high-tech products, given the long sales cycles, and commercial requirements at the best of times. The string of international branding creates a cringe factor when declaring the country of origin being Australia.”

73% found difficulties in establishing business in the United States due to American subordinates/employees considering Australian managers and suppliers as inferior.

“Those who took a consensus building path with US based subsidiaries, found the process frustrating and ultimately not very rewarding. Those who took a hard line, and quickly established the pecking order enjoyed a faster swing in attitude away from that Australian’s are all Dundees,” says Lycos.
38% of the CEOs admitted that the negative stereotypes had made them ‘home-town snobs’, inferring that they preferred to deal with overseas suppliers or contractors, rather than look at local options.

“When companies seek to expand internationally, the risks are huge. CEO’s of smaller, investor-funded companies, become very self conscious and want to be seen to be taking the right or safe option, which means to snub their fellow countrymen, in favour of saying that they have an international relationship.” continued Lycos.

On a positive note, 89% of the CEO’s believe that brand Australia has helped relationships, by being portrayed as laid back, easy to conduct business with and trustworthy.

100% Pure Kiwi envy?

by Marketing ON 2 July 2010

Over half the Australian tourism industry rates New Zealand its fiercest competitor, with the most successful marketing campaign in the past 12 months, according to the Tourism Futures Roy Morgan industry survey.

Up to 55% of survey respondents ranked the ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ campaign as the best in the world excluding Australia, well clear of Canada (7%), India (5%), UK/England (3%) and South Africa (3%).

The Tourism Futures conference held in Brisbane revealed the final results of its industry survey, which also revealed that a third of the Australian industry is keen to co-operatively market with New Zealand.

“The Australian industry acknowledges New Zealand’s marketing supremacy in this survey, which highlights the opportunity we have. Not everyone has the ‘best in the world’ sitting right next door,” said Tony Charters, Tourism Futures convenor.

“The survey also points to a mood for co-operation, with a realization that it may not be in our best interests to go head-to-head with New Zealand when vying for international visitors. Despite our sporting rivalries, perhaps we have a lot to learn from New Zealand, and a lot to gain from working more closely together.”

Australia and New Zealand could potentially present as a united destination, under a strategic alliance including marketing, quality standards, training standards and a relaxation of border controls, similar to the 10 ASEAN countries in South East Asia.

“We don’t do fjords and glaciers, they don’t do deserts or tropical experiences – Australian and New Zealand are complimentary. And when you’re talking to markets in the northern hemisphere, asking them to take an expensive, long-haul flight you’ve got to make the offer irresistible.”

One big holiday

by Marketing ON 9 June 2010

According to the national Tourism Futures/Roy Morgan tourism industry survey, the idea of combining marketing for Australia and New Zealand has seen significant support from Australia.

Polled in the lead up to the Tourism Futures conference, 34% of industry executives backed the idea, while 16% also supported joint promotion with Pacific Islands.

“Australia and New Zealand are complementary destinations rather than competitive destinations,” said Tourism Futures convenor, Tony Charters.

“Australia can’t do glaciers and Fjord-lands, New Zealand can’t do deserts and outback experiences. Maori culture is quite unique as is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. We share many common elements – language, lifestyle, food and wine – but even those apparent similarities are quite distinctive once you take a closer look.”

Both Australia and New Zealand have new leadership with Andrew McEvoy and Kevin Bowler leading respectively which Charters hopes will allow for a new era of co-operation.

“It could include marketing, quality standards, training standards and relaxation of border controls, as is seen in the ASEAN situation,” said Charters.

NT Tourism releases third campaign instalment

by Marketing ON 19 April 2010

Tourism Northern Territory has announced the third chapter in a series of campaigns highlighting the experiences of a holiday to the NT.

The campaign will have comedian Corinne Grant taking viewers through the Kakadu region, air boating across the Bamarru Plains to helicopter flights, culture tours and swimming in Nitmiluk National Park.

The campaign, developed by media agency MPG and digital agency Media Contacts, centres around webisodes on Yahoo!7 featuring Grant taking viewers through the Kakadu region.

It follows two other webisode series featuring Sydney DJ Anna Lunoe in Darwin and ex-AFL player Russell Robertson in the Red Centre.

MPG client service director Corinne Moth said delivery of high-quality content online was effective in engaging potential visitors to the NT.

“The Kakadu campaign reflects the need to take an innovative approach in a changing media landscape. Bringing a content-led strategy together through digital and broadcast platforms has enabled us to evolve our marketing of NT. The Darwin and Red Centre campaigns have delivered fantastic results and we have no doubt that Kakadu will continue this success,” explained Moth.

Tourism Qld launches $478k Tropical Treats campaign

by Marketing ON 15 April 2010

Tourism Queensland has announced a campaign to attract consumers from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to holiday in North Queensland as part of a $478,000 tourism marketing strategy.

The campaign ‘Tropical Treats’ aims to attract more visitors to the region during traditionally quieter months in the middle of the year and will incorporate more than 40 operators, television, print, online and in-store components.

Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism and Member for Barron River, Steve Wettenhall, indicated that the latest initiative is part a series of aggressive marketing activities coordinated by Tourism Queensland in an attempt to get more Aussie holidaymakers to the region.

“Campaigns like this are having a tangible impact domestically and have helped to support the industry through a particularly tough year. Last month I announced the ‘Feel a million miles away in a few hours’ campaign and late last year Tourism Queensland also coordinated the ‘Spend more time, not more money’ campaign for the region which resulted in nearly 7,800 room nights and an estimated $5 million in visitor expenditure,” said Wettenhall.

“More than 1.5 million Aussies visited Tropical North Queensland in 2009, increasing their spending on visits by 23% to $1.7 billion.”

Paid for: best job in the world

by Marketing ON 29 June 2009

Tourism Queensland’s ‘The Best Job In The World’ campaign has outdone Tourism Australia’s sponsorship of Baz Luhrmann’s movie Australia.

Despite its cost of $1.7 million, juxtaposed with Australia sponsorship priced at $40 million, ‘The Best Job In The World’ campaign has been valued at $200 million.

The campaign has set a new record at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, receiving three Grand Prixs for public relations, direct advertising and web.

Don Morris, chairman of Tourism Queensland, said the campaign has become a case study on how to use social media.

No one has done this as a simple business story. This is a seriously interesting case study of how to use social media. Tourism Australia put $40 million into the Australia movie and it is ranked something like 469. The Queensland Government put $1 million and partners another $700,000 into the Best Job campaign, said Morris.

The integrated campaign began with print ads, but soon moved to web, YouTube and social media.

While the campaign was launched in the core target market of the UK, Morris said the campaign had transcended borders, bringing a massive ROI in Europe, North America and south east Asia.

It is estimated three billion people were exposed to the campaign.