Assessment task concerning the marketing of Australia by its Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO), Tourism Australia.
Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to examine the effectiveness of the Destination Marketing Organisation, Tourism Australia, in marketing Australia as a tourism destination in relation to three critical success factors; marketing research as an integral activity, targeting the right type of tourist, as well as promoting unique tourism features, clear images, and a solid brand.
There is also a comprehensive analysis of two more recent campaigns, ‘So Where the Bloody Hell are You?’ and ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ in relation to the three success factors mentioned above.
Through an extensive amount of research and exploration, this report has detailed material in regards to what the basis of each of the campaigns were, what market research was conducted, and what the specific type of target tourist that each of the campaigns had.
The results showed that the more recent marketing campaign ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ was more successful than ‘So Where the Bloody Hell are You?’ due to having higher international visitor numbers following the release of the campaign for both the year immediate of release as well as the year following that.
This showing that as a Destination Marketing Organisation, Tourism Australia is effective, and as time continues on, their campaigns are becoming more specific and better suited to the targeted market.
Table of Contents
1.Introduction
The international marketing of Australia is done through the Destination Marketing Organisation of Tourism Australia.
How effective the Destination Marketing Organisation of Tourism Australia is can depend on the number of international travellers arriving in Australia each year in response to the marketing camping that is running at the time.
There are two campaigns that Tourism Australia is more recently well known for; ‘So Where the Bloody Hell are You?’ released in 2006, and the ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ campaign which was released in 2010.
2. “There’s Nothing like Australia” Campaign
March 31st, 2010 marked the launch of Tourism Australia’s long-term, three-phase marketing campaign ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ (TNLA). The first phase, ‘Invite’: Australian Consumer Promotion, involving and inviting Australians to share their stories of the favourite and most memorable holiday destinations that they’ve had within their home country. This idea quickly became the country’s biggest consumer-generated promotion (Tourism Australia, 2013), as Australians responded with over 60 000 (Tourism Australia, 2010) stories and photos.
The responses to the phase one of the ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ campaign were turned into a now interactive map available at www.nothinglikeaustralia.com. This map gives world-wide travellers a more personal indication on where there is to travel and what there is to do when making plans for their own Australian holiday.
With each submission beginning with ‘There’s nothing like’, the memories that the Australian public produced were merged into a selection of less location specific but very individually Australian sections. From these, a range of statements were then created to form the basis for a range of print/image media, and the script and filming concepts for the major video production.
As of May 2010, phase 2 of Tourism Australia’s TNLA campaign had begun, ‘Inspire’: International Campaign (Tourism Australia, 2013). This included the release of the commercial, the print/image media and the interactive map/website across many countries around the world. The global launch beginning in China and continuing through the USA, UK, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, France, Korea, Italy, Japan and Hong Kong (Tourism Australia 2012).
There are plans for phase three of the ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ campaign, ‘Engage’: In-Market Campaign. This involves working with Australian companies including airlines, travel agents and tour operators so that anyone who sells Australian holidays can use the tagline & imagery from this campaign to ensure that Australia has solid branding world-wide. 2.1 Marketing Research as an Integral Activity.
Extensive research was conducted for Tourism Australia through the research specialists Ipsos ASI in key target markets prior to the launch of the ‘There’s nothing like Australia’ campaign (Tourism Australia, 2012). The key markets of Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, UK and USA all had a select sample audience that were tested with quantitative and qualitative research methods on different film concepts, print media executions and a film soundtrack. The same stimulus materials and questionnaires were used throughout all target markets with local language translators used when needed. 2.2Targeting the Right Type of Tourist
Tourism Australia (2013) is aware that a vital element of their ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ strategy revolves around having a target market consisting of a high yielding consumer segment. Through the use of psychographic research, Tourism Australia has determined the personal factors that influence a tourist to travel and what makes them receptive to the Australian experience. These identities lead to the title of the target market of Experience Seekers. This target market is highly prone to what Australia has to offer and is more likely to stay longer, spend more and disperse to regional areas (Tourism Australia, 2013). Experience Seekers are known to be long haul travellers who are less affected by cost and time, of which are known barriers to long-distance travel. They establish 30-50% of all long haul outbound travellers from the previously stated key markets, and are more informed, interested and curious about probable travel destinations (Tourism Australia, 2013). 2.3Promoting Unique Tourism Features, Clear Images, and a Solid Brand.
Keeping the above information in mind, the TNLA campaign has been specifically suited to entice these experience seekers to Australia. With having specific key ‘wants’ to fulfil their travel experiences, Experience Seekers search for authentic personal experiences, meeting and interacting with the locals, and experiencing something different from their normal day-to-day life. The commercial that is a part of the TNLA campaign definitely does its part in trying to include many scenarios that cover some of the wants of the Experience Seeker travellers. From the statement of ‘where everyone’s your mate’, along with the scene of the piano being played on the beach “there’s nothing like the sunrise, the first wave of the day’, to the interactions with the Australian wildlife and ‘there’s nothing like this bear-that’s not a bear’; all these scenarios are unique to Australia and meet the expectations that Experience Seekers have.
3.“So Where the Bloody Hell are You?” Campaign.
Australia’s destination marketing organisation, Tourism Australia, launched in 2006 a new international promotional campaign ‘The Australian Invitation’, (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008) better known as ‘So where the bloody hell are you?’. This campaign consisted of a range of print media and audio-visual material. The video advertisements compiled of a
series of typical Australians (Weaver and Lawton, 2010) announcing a succession of statements in regard to an action that has been taken at a variety of iconic Australian locations. The commercial finishes with a celebrity, Lara Bingle, stepping out of the ocean at Fingal Spit asking the now well-known punch-line, “So where the bloody hell are you?”. 3.1Marketing Research as an Integral Activity.
Before the ‘Australian Invitation’ campaign was released, Tourism Australia ensured that a serious amount of research and investigation was done on the proposed presentations. Working with approximately 86 focus groups, over 47 000 international tourist consumers, the research efforts involved segmentation studies, brand tracking, international visitor studies and in-depth interviews, all in all costing $6.2 million (Weaver and Lawton, 2010). These studies were conducted on key markets to Australian tourism, previously identified by Tourism Australia, including the US, UK, China and Japan (Jan Charbonneau, 2012).
The results from the research were positive with the campaign being said to ‘attention grabbing’, ‘distinctively Australian’, ‘authentic’, and having a genuine & believable invitation to Australia (Jan Charbonneau, 2012); a participant from the UK even noting ‘It’s Aussie…cheeky, laid back, forthright.’ 3.2Targeting the Right Type of Tourist.
The ‘Australian Invitation’ campaign had the intention to reach a more sophisticated global traveller (Tourism Australia, 2006), a traveller whom has high levels of income and education, is open minded and well-travelled. These characteristics led to Tourism Australia aiming their newly designed campaign at a large market of travellers labelled ‘Experience Seekers’ (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008). These travellers seek out and enjoy authentic personal experience…are active in their pursuits of adventure…and place high value on contrasting experiences (Tourism Australia, 2006).
3.3Promoting Unique Tourism Features, Clear Images, and a Solid Brand.
While remembering what it is that an Experience Seeker pursues when
travelling, Tourism Australia’s 2006 campaign has many features that reflect those particular ‘wants’ to help engage the desired tourist market. With the entire advert being personalised ‘We’ve bought you a beer’, ‘We’ve saved you a spot on the beach’, to ‘So, where the bloody hell are you?’ as well as majority of the scenes having physical activity as a part of the happenings; swimming, playing golf, native aboriginal dancing etc. There is also a visible contrast in the environment of Australia, from the isolated and outback Uluru, to a sociable city-scape at the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Although Tourism Australia managed to promote what made Australia unique from the rest of the world in the ‘Australian Invitation’ campaign, there were many negative connotations that arose due to this marketing strategy. The phrase of ‘bloody hell’ may be a common colloquialism in Australia, but when used in an international campaign to promote a country, there are many ways in which this can misinterpreted. The language of the ad needed to be viewed & interpreted in context of the ad & the Australian language, not with the meaning of the words that are associated within the viewers’ home country.
It was in the UK that there was a problem with use of the word ‘bloody’ in the video advertisement, of which there was 36 formal viewer complaints made to the Advertising Standards Authority about the ‘swearing’ (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008). The ASA also received a number of official complaints (32) from UK residents when a series of three billboards for the campaign were launched which featured the wording ‘We’ve switched on the lights. And the champagne is on board. So where the bloody hell are you?’ (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008).
Due to the controversy that arose with the launching of the ‘Australian Invitation’ campaign in the UK, the advertisement was originally banned on UK television for 10 days, before the ban was up-lifted and allowed to be shown during no-kids timings, after 9pm at night (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008).
The UK took part in the initial market research of Tourism Australia’s
newest campaign in which there was no problem like what was the Australian Government/Tourism Australia was now being faced with. It has to be remembered that although this global tourism campaign was carefully designed for the specific target markets of experience seekers, when shown on a country’s TV, or the print media being on show in a capital city, there is a far broader audience than that compared to the original market research assessment group. These extra numbers can include groups of people who the advertisers had not originally catered for, and it is that segment of the population that could potentially have the problem with the use of the language in the ‘Australian Invitation’ campaign (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008).
The second country that this campaign raised eyebrows in was Canada. They were accepting to the use of the word ‘bloody’, it was ‘hell’ that they had the issue with. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation banned the running of the ads during family programming while monitoring the responses of the audience when the advertisement was run in other timeslots (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008). This wasn’t the only problem with the ‘Australian Invitation’ campaign in Canada; the locals also didn’t like the fact that the ad had the image of a half-full glass of beer, and whether or not it complied with Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission’s Code for Broadcast Advertising of Alcoholic Beverages (Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008). The final result of this was that the beginning shot which included the image of the beer ended up being cut from the advertisement, just for the viewing of the ad in Canada.
Japan also had a slight problem with this new campaign of Tourism Australia. The campaign was translated into the commonly spoken language of the country that it was shown in, and as a result of this, ‘so where the bloody hell are you?’ in Japanese was a much less friendly statement of ‘where are you?’(Caroline Winter & Sharon Gallon, 2008) which wasn’t banned, but wasn’t as socially accepted as original planned/hoped.
4.Campaign vs Campaign: Effectiveness of Australia’s Destination Marketing Organisation, Tourism Australia.
The statistics provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008), show that there was an increase in the number of international visitors in both the years following the release of the two campaigns.
After the ‘Australian Invitation’ campaign began in early 2006, the visitor numbers for 2006-2007 period increased by 2.9% when compared to the previous year. With this factor in mind, the international visitors most commonly increasing when compared to the previous years’ statistics were New Zealand, the UK, and Japan (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009), even though the UK had the most amount of controversy involved with the campaign.
The year following the release of Tourism Australia’s ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ campaign, the international visitor numbers again increased, 3.8% higher (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013).Those international visitor numbers increasing the most from China, New Zealand and Malaysia.
The ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ campaign is now in its third year of running and up to its third phase, where as the “So Where the Bloody Hell are You?’ was replaced within 2 years. 2008 was the year that Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Australia’ movie along with the released of Tourism Australia’s short-lived promotion ‘See the Movie, See the Country’ promotion.
The benefits of having a campaign continue running rather than replacing it with a whole new one is that the government will save money on promoting the country by passing through the set phases, and only making improvements/changes when required.
When comparing the visitor numbers of the second years of the two campaigns, it is the most recent TNLA campaign that has the better numbers. ‘So Where the Bloody Hell are You?’ has a decrease in visitor numbers (0.2%) in 2007-2008 particularly from Japan, the UK and Korea, when compared to the 2006-2007 statistics (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). The second year of release, 2011-2010, for ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ on the other hand, had an increase of 2.1% with China, New Zealand, Indonesia and
Taiwan (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013) having the biggest growths.
5.Conclusion
As time has progressed, the Destination Marketing Organisation of Australia, Tourism Australia has improved its campaigns due to the longer time that the campaigns are running. It has also shown that the more extensive the market research is towards the target audience and the reactions of these audiences towards the campaign, the more positive the results will be.
‘So Where the Bloody Hell are You?’ campaign has definitely lefts its mark on the world, with the slogan sitting highly with the 1984 campaign of ‘Put another shrimp on the barbie’. The only thought is, what will the current ‘There’s nothing like Australia’ campaign be remembered as in ten, twenty or fifty years’ time? References
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