Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

2020 was a year of reinvention for socially-led brand experience & activation. In a year of lockdowns, brands had to rapidly develop new ways of connecting with audiences, creating new pathways and platforms for interaction and inventing new motivators for people to engage. There's no industry in which this was more true than Australia's tourism sector - an industry completely shut off from international visitors, facing the worst year in its history. Against that backdrop, we created a new kind of brand experience - one that leveraged social media to create a virtual holiday when the world needed it most.

Background

In the wake of devastating bushfires and a global pandemic, Australia’s tourism sector was facing its most difficult period ever. To help the industry survive, we needed to inspire local and international audiences to start planning their next Aussie holiday at a time when they couldn’t leave home… Our brief? Provide support to an industry facing an uncertain year ahead, and inspiration for a world in lockdown. Our objective? To reignite the dream for travel in Australia by: - Facilitating international audiences to explore and experience Australia remotely - Increasing Australians' intention to undertake domestic travel as soon as borders opened To achieve these two objectives, we'd need to generate an impact both locally and internationally, unifying mass reach with deep engagement to drive meaningful shifts in attitudes and behaviours around travel in Australia.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Live From Aus - a socially-led virtual holiday, reconnecting the world with the best of Australia, on the hour every hour, for an entire weekend. We launched the unique brand experience via a live broadcast television event that continued into a full weekend schedule of live and interactive Australian experiences, streamed to the world on Facebook. With attention grabbed from the big screen, we delivered deep experiences on the small, handing over the reins to over 40 tourism industry operators and entertainment personalities to show off the incredible breadth of Australia’s tourism offering through 32 immersive live streams from every state and territory. As viewers engaged directly with our live streams, our talent responded directly in real time, answering questions and revealing hidden gems. Our squad of community managers then followed up with links to useful resources to help our global audience start planning their next trip in Australia.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The High Value Traveller (HVT) is Tourism Australia’s target audience. HVTs value travel, enjoy experiences which Australia is known for and are likely to spend more, stay longer and disperse further. But at the height of lockdown, no HVTs were planning an Australian holiday. So we needed to understand what they WERE doing instead. Analysing rapidly evolving media consumption, we discovered they were in search of new forms of social interaction, with news and personality anchored TV programming up 17.4% YOY. But the relationship between TV screens and social media was also changing. Once confined to mobile devices, live streams were providing a form of escape and variety for living room entertainment. Social media users were searching and streaming live content, with Facebook Live and YouTube Live audiences tripling compared to pre-COVID levels. With travel unattainable, we went where the HVTs were and created something they couldn’t get anywhere else.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

We created a Facebook event to invite the world on a virtual holiday around Australia, generating over 100,000 sign ups. To generate maximum awareness locally, we partnered with national broadcaster Channel 10 to create The Love Australia Project - a network-first, special-edition of Australia’s most popular panel show, The Project. This integrated TV special, broadcast nationally and streamed online, trended #1 on Twitter, uniting Channel 10’s best talent to celebrate Australia’s tourism sector and introduce viewers to the Live From Aus virtual holiday experience. Then we handed over the reins to 40 tourism industry operators and personalities to do what they do best. Over 48 hours, Aussies from every corner of the country connected HVTs with the incredible breadth of Australia’s tourism offering through their unique live stories and experiences. All this in less than 6 weeks from briefing to live date, all under strict COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

List the results (30% of vote)

The epic ‘Live From Aus’ weekend delivered epic results. The Love Australia Project TV event reached 1.27 million Aussie viewers, trending #1 on Twitter nationally. The Live From Aus brand experience drew 6.6 million live views, delivering 12 years of viewership in just 36 hours. The view count for the experience climbed to 34 million over the following fortnight, engaging people from over 40 countries. The activation generated 226 million global impressions, reaching 127 million unique social users and driving significant lifts in recall and sentiment in all international markets. The experience earned 1,765 pieces of media coverage with 100% positive sentiment, delivering an estimated 1 billion reach through global PR. Importantly, ‘Live From Aus’ genuinely reignited the dream of travel in Australia. Booking.com recorded an instant 10x spike in search for Australian holiday experiences and many featured tourism operators received new bookings directly attributable to their live streams.