Australia by Baz | BTalk Australia

(14min 27) While Baz Luhrmann was producing his lengthy epic, “Australia”, he was also working on a TV campaign to promote the country as a destination for overseas visitors.

On today’s BTalk Australia Phil Dobbie talks to the Managing Director of Tourism Australia Geoff Buckley about this new campaign. What is it trying to achieve and is it working? Will it help to counter a downturn in visitor arrivals?

Add your thoughts on the campaign in the Talkback section at the bottom of this post.

See also: Where the Bloody Hell Are They? | BTalk Australia

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• Today’s Transcript

Phil Dobbie: Hello, I’m Phil Dobbie and welcome to BTalk Australia. Today: you’ve seen the film, now watch the TV commercial. Baz Luhrmann’s latest epic, simply called Australia, has had mixed reviews around the world but it is being talked about; so is the latest advertising campaign from Tourism Australia. It’s being produced by the Baz Luhrmann team and the aim is to increase foreign earnings from tourism. Let’s talk about it as the Managing Director of Tourism Autralia, Geoff Buckley, he’s on the line. Geoff, having Baz produce a commercial that draws a bit of attention for a campaign to start with doesn’t it?

Geoff Buckley: That’s exactly right. One thing about associating yourself with a major Fox movie and with someone of the likes of Baz Luhrmann and I suppose the star is Nicole and Hugh, really does make for a huge amount of global publicity, which has been so far to our advantage.

Dobbie: I guess trying to leverage extra press coverage is the key part of the approach you’ve taken with us, isn’t it. I saw Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman sharing off their favourite bits of Australia on Oprah. It’s difficult to buy that sort of coverage.

Buckley: That’s exactly right. I think when you’ve got someone like Hugh also, not just talking about the movie, but also talking about our own ads that were produced by Baz Luhrmann’s as well, is fantastic for us. It gives us so much more exposure than we otherwise have been able to get.

Dobbie: Now talk about Paul’s part with this latest campaign. We couldn’t get further from “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign. We’re swinging from one end to the other. Is this “sophistication” approach a new direction you think you’re going to stick with in terms of promoting Australia as a destination?

Buckley: In part it is. Obviously this opportunity was somewhat unique in that we had a movie called Australia about Australia and it was going to get enormous exposure. So the opportunity was to see what we could do to leverage. When we looked at the way in which the movie was developing and the underlying theme of the movie, we talked with Baz Luhrmann about that — it was very clear that this was going to be a story about transformation, basically, and about romance and adventure. We wanted to make sure that our own advertising, our own campaign was synergistic. It really did reinforce that message and so I suppose it was two-fold. One was to take the opportunity and we needed something that would fit with that opportunity of the movie; and, two, we were really thinking that the “So where the bloody hell are you?” had done its job quite well in the Western markets but wasn’t working as well in some of the Eastern markets. Certainly, it had its limitations because of its inability to be able to shown in some markets, and other things. So it was a combination of the two things that took us in this direction.

Dobbie: So what’s happening with this campaign? Is this being shown globally?

Buckley: Yes, it is. We’re to roll out across all of our key markets. We’ve only taken it internationally into the UK at this stage. We’ve started to roll it out domestically and that’s the first time we’ve done that with one of their global campaigns, so that started on the weekend. And we will progressively roll the campaign mainly in cinemas but also in some TV, and then we’ve got a print component and an online component. And that will rool out kind of be in conjunction with the rollout of the movie but ahead of the movie so we can get take advantage of some of the pre-publicity that comes out.

Dobbie: Is there a danger though that by putting the same ad out into numerous markets you’re going to make the same mistake again that we experienced with Lara Bingle?

Buckley: Actually, what we have done is created an Eastern and a Western version, so in that sense we have learned a bit of a lesson but we recognise that the fundamental idea of our ads is very much about people with a stressful life looking for that sort of revitalisation that reinvigoration. We’re trying to get that message across as Australia provides that transformation or outcome. We’ve actually produced an Eastern version and a Western version to try and pick up different nuances and cultural approaches of those two broad market areas.

Dobbie: Now, it is a beautiful TV item and the print campaign is just as stunning as obviously we’ve got some of the most beautiful parts in the world to photograph. But I guess there’s also the question of balance — I know years ago it used to be called the three Rs–the Reef, the Rock and the “Ropera” House. We still need to have those icons in the advertising because that’s what sells Australia; but they’re a little less prominent in this campaign. So how do you get in the balance between using those icons but also promoting different aspects of Australia? It’s a hard job, isn’t it?

Buckley: Yeah, it is. You know I think what we’ve done this time is really take a different approach. What we recognised with a lot of destinational ads is that there are a lot of pretty pictures and there’s a lot of beautiful, absolutely stunning, scenery across the world, so we are trying to take our brand into a different positioning. We are really trying to drive some emotion into our brand and this is very much about trying to get this more fundamental message of a transformation. What’s a holiday all about? Why do I take a holiday? We’re trying to own some of that emotional takeout, so these ads are very different style. They’re not about a showcase of pretty pictures. They’re very much about trying to get a reason why you take a holiday first, and then with our print and our online we can tell the rest of the story about how Australia might deliver that. That’s when you get into the beautiful scenery and the different parts of Australia, and you can push out Sydney Harbor or the Rock or in fact the reef in that print or online, and you can tell a much deeper story then.

Dobbie: So it’s all about a place to escape to. But it’s still associated with the film isn’t it? Isn’t there a risk for any company attaching your brand to a film or a personality can be a risk if the personality does something wrong, or the film bombs, you could have wasted your money. Is there a danger that you might be going down that road?

Buckley: I think we saw that risk and in the end we waited up and I suppose the approach we’ve taken is one that this is a movie which has had something like a hundred and something million dollars US spent on its development and probably a similar amount being spent on its direct marketing; so there was no way we wanted to miss the opportunity of leveraging off that. And I suppose the second thing was our approach to develop a separate campaign rather than just do leveraging work off the film; that is, to produce a separate campaign, albeit linked, was to try and provide if you like a little bit of fallback depending on how the movie goes. So the campaign actually stands alone, you can look at the campaign, you can look at the ads and the print campaign and you should get it no matter what. If you haven’t seen the movie, it shouldn’t matter and it should work just as well as any other campaign. I think that’s, if you like, our risk-minimisation strategy. But clearly if you’ve seen the movie you’ll get that there are very strong linkages between the two and we’re hoping that will reinforce. That’s the strategy in this particular case and it was a matter of saying this is the biggest opportunity that’s come Australia’s way for a little while now, and there was no way that you wanted to miss that opportunity.

Dobbie: It’s just a thing about the timing isn’t it? Because the UK and the USA if they’re not in recession they will be — the economists can argue about that, so is it the right time? I appreciate the connection with the film but is it the right time to be advertising to those markets?  

Buckley: Actually, I think it’s a fantastic time to go out with something that will really try and drive people beyond some rational decision-making with some sort of emotional response. It’s tough global economic conditions out there and that’s making it tough for tourism, but I think in those sort of tough times you want to get back to basics and you really want to get some emotional truth behind your product. That’s what this campaign is really trying to do and really establish an emotional connection with the brand, which we think in these sort of tough times people are looking for something special, something different — something that will really take their minds off of some of the financial troubles. What we do know about tourism: it’s very resilient. Typically the numbers don’t drop off that much. What they do do is maybe go shorter-haul or they spend less but then they stop travelling in large numbers. People see travel as a fundamental part of life and we’re really quite keen to try and make sure Australia is still there in that marketplace and don’t step away from it.

Dobbie: Maybe we’ll get a slice of everyone’s entrenchment packages if things really turn bad. They’ll have all the time in the world and they’ll have a little bit of money at least in the short term. But Geoff Dixon from Qantas has said that they’re forecasting 4 percent less flying time next year. They’ve cut back on flights. Most of their flights are in or out of Australia so they must be expecting some sort of downturn. How are you seeing the next 12 months?  Are you hoping this campaign is going to keep some growth in the market?

Buckley: I don’t think we see growth as an objective here based on this year’s numbers. I think what we’re expecting is that there will be a small drop in the sort of market research that we’re getting back from the markets. They’re telling us that they’re not seeing large dropoffs in bookings at this stage but they’re worried about first quarter and second quarter next year. So there lies the big issue and it’s probably more around consumer sentiment than anything else. I think people are just hesitant and are just not committing at this stage waiting to see what will happen next. If things settle down a little then people will come back to the marketplace and, as I said, not choose the same expensive version but will still look to travel. We’re hoping we can pick up market share that way. And of course the offsetting component for us has been the shift in the exchange rates, which have gone into our favour if you think about inbound tourism and that will filter through the system as well, so that’s a positive for us. We’ve just got to see whether it offsets the negative of consumer sentiment out there.

Dobbie: It’s not as good as it was, but it’s good. Is there any indication about how the campaign is working so far, or is it still early days?

Buckley: Well, it’s very early days. What we’re really pleased with: we probably had 100 million downloads of the ad so in a sense of what’s been seen and what people know about; it’s been fantastic so far. But clearly we’ve only just gone out in early stages with one versed in the UK at this point and we saw a spike on our Australia.com, which is the key call to action, but this needs that combination of the exposure from the film and the ads to work together and that’s starting to play out as well. So far so good, but it’s still early days for us.

Dobbie: Now when times are good and campaigns are working well, I expect the return on investment for tourism in relation to the marketing could be colossal. Do you think if you had a lot more money to spend you could deliver much more in terms of results for Australia?

Buckley: It’s a hard one. I think that what we have seen in any research is that the return on investment multiple is somewhere and something between 12 and 18; that is, for $1.00 spent in marketing between 12 and 18 dollars returned to Australia. In any research we’ve seen that sort of process but that doesn’t mean automatically just put more money in and you’ll get better return. I think it does depend on the market; it does depend on the opportunities out there. So I suppose the answer is: if you can get to the right markets with the right sort of marketing and you can add a bit more to it, then you can get a better response. It doesn’t automatically work that way so it’s one where you’ve got to take a balanced approach I think.

Dobbie: Well, listen: people are fighting in the box offices at the moment I think between the Australia epic or going to watch James Bond. There are two beautiful messages I think where one shows a beautiful country and the other one shows that if you go to England you’re probably going to get shot.

Buckley: That’s true, and I know the one I’d choose, but anyway, there you go.

Dobbie: Thanks for loaning us your time Jeff.  

Buckley: Okay, Phil, thank you.