The Campaign

Branded content in Australia is a growing area across TV and digital platforms particularly due to the growth of video over broadband and social media. SBS and ABC (national broadcasting channels) have major restrictions in regards to brands and integration in programs. Our domestic free to air channels have some limited restrictions, however it's largely self-policing based on the networks desire to balance brand involvement with program integrity and audience appeal. Hence most attempts at branded content end up in fringe time slots or on subscription TV channels with less than 5% audience share… What branded content the networks engage with is managed by them rather than brands doing deals with production companies. It is the holy grail of branded content to find home on a major free-to-air network in prime time with a large prime time audience in attendance.

Results

The combination of a strong Australian dollar and cheap international travel has seen Aussies flocking abroad for their holidays. Our challenge was to turn this around and have Australians start planning a holiday within Australia. Working from the insight above, through a nationwide consumer promotion, we challenged Australia to nominate their ultimate Aussie holiday ‘Dream Team’ – selecting from their friends and family. The incentive? Sixteen incredible luxury Australian holidays were up for grabs for the best entries. We led the charge to amplify the promotion, assembling the ultimate ‘Dream Team’ from high profile Australian talent. At the heartbeat of the campaign was the production of an inspiring 30min prime time TV documentary broadcast nationally. From the road (during production), the Dream Team brought the promotional campaign to life, showcasing the best of Australia and sharing their stories through national TV, radio and digital integration – all of which worked together building incremental reach and driving to the Tourism Australia entry page to enter. From sky diving over sandy beaches, to camel riding at Uluru, the team’s evocative journey was relayed live to the Australian audience from the road and captured as part of the documentary. Australian TV shows crossed to the ‘Dream Team’ from the road, while breakfast radio on Australia’s leading network heard about the daily adventures and engaged listeners to tell their own incredible Aussie holiday stories. Digital and social media were central to the activity, with behind the scenes content from the road released exclusively online and promoted by the featured talent. The documentary ‘Aussie Holiday Dream Team’ captured the emotional chemistry of the team and told a truly inspiring story of the magic of Australia.

A great holiday isn’t just about fabulous locations and amazing experiences. It’s the people you create and share those memories with - your friends and your family, each bringing their own special something to the trip. Your Dream Team. Bucking the trend of another sandy beach advert, our focus was on driving a deeper emotional connection with the audience. Evoking memories of the audience’s personal experiences, allowing us to create truly engaging content that people could genuinely connect with. A clear distribution strategy sat behind this work to ensure optimum delivery to our target.

The documentary was watched by over 540,000 people nationwide. But did we convince Australians that they’re missing out? Over 310,000 unique visitors , an increase of 200% YoY, uploaded their entries on nothinglikeaustralia.com.au, checked out the gallery of images and browsed the interactive map. Australians flocked to Tourism Australia’s Facebook page, to discover more about Australia, with an increase of almost 100,000 fans during the campaign period, helping it grow its position as the number one travel and tourism fan page in the world. Most importantly, Australians initiated holiday planning with 71% of those that saw the campaign undertaking planning for a domestic holiday – helping contribute to a $670m YoY growth in expenditure within the campaign period and a $1.6B growth YoY in the following quarter of Jan to March 2012 Now Australia knows there’s nothing like a holiday in your own backyard with your very own Dream Team!