How Tourism Australia brought Oprah to Oz
Last year’s Mumbrella360 saw Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia share the inside story on Project Chicago – the tourism body’s eight year project to bring Oprah Winfrey to the country.
He also shared early data on the effectiveness of the large investment.
The video highlights
Great campaign, as was QLD Tourism’s “Best Job in the world” campaign, but both failed to successfully bring in the tourists.
Just goes to show, all the publicity in the world doesn’t necessarily equate to bums on plane seats.
Might have been a different story had we not had such a strong Aussie dollar, floods, cyclones etc…
‘How’? Why!
Richard,
I cant speak on behalf of the Oprah intiative intimately. But I can say with absolute knowledge that on all the measurements Best Job was an outstanding success. That this small pr /promo campaign became a worldwide phenomenon is testimony to the power of the idea. A very simple beautiful insight that captivated the attention of the world. And yes, exepctations of it grew as the enthusiasm grew. But tourism marketing is a difficult business.And we should continue to celebrate these initiatives to teach and encourage all the best advertising and marketing minds to become interested in tourism as a category. It is one of Australia’s most important industries and it needs people in our industry to become evangelists rather than nay -sayers. People like Andrew McEvoy , Geoff Dixon and the like are wanting help from our industry. Not golf claps from the sideline. Get in the game, be interested in this category and you too may find it the most rewarding thing you can do. Sean Cummins
Richard, you just got served!