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Government 2.0

PR & Media Summit, 2009

___________________________________Presentation by:

Nick Baker, Executive General Manager Marketing

Tourism Australia

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Marketing Australia

• Operate in 23 countries over the world, with 12 offices globally

• Role to increase international arrivals into Australia

• Strategy around ‘storytelling’

• Shift from advertising centric to idea centric

• Media being built around bought, owned and earned

• In PR shift from straight ‘Visiting Journalist Program’ to Visiting Opinion Leader

• Branded content

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The film as a Tourism Australia (TA) asset

• 20th Century Fox spent around US $200 million creating a piece of entertainment which tells the world that ‘Australia’ is a romantic, adventurous place where people experience extraordinary things and are transformed

• The tellers of this story are some of our most famous Australians

• The other star of the story is the country itself

• This story is the same story we endeavour to tell potential travellers the world over

• TA’s role has been to leverage the power of the film’s message to deliver its own message

Media Value

• Over 1,650 articles have been generated globally from TA’s media relations for ATM - a combined circulation of more than 2.9 billion people

• Additional messaging on Australia, resulting from the movie but generated by other organisations (e.g. Fox) has resulted in approx 1,800 articles - an estimated combined circulation of 4.4 billion people

• In total the campaign has generated 3,500 articles at a combined value of over AUD $254 million

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Movie attendance

• Australia’s box office earnings have exceeded US $200 million

• Approximately 23 million people have paid to see the movie globally

• The film opened in the top three positions in the UK, USA, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Spain and France

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TA’s Media Hosting Programs - overview

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TA has been hosting media for 20 years

• Recognised as one of the best programs in the world (Research International: Global Media Survey 2006)

Three tier program

• Tier One - 100% owned and controlled by TA

• Tier Two - 50/50% delivered in collaboration with 8 State Tourism Organisations

• Tier Three - 100% owned and controlled by TA but focused on engaging locally based foreign correspondents and freelance journalists to create content for international distribution

Objectives

• To generate deep rich storytelling on Australia within the world’s leading media channels

• To enable media to experience the destination first hand

• To generate powerful and credible third party endorsement

• To build sound and lasting media relationships

TA’s Media Hosting Programs – number crunching

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• More than 870 media representatives from 30 countries hosted

annually

• 1,000+ tourism operators support media visits providing FOC or

substantial discounts

• Visits are either fully-hosted (88%) or partial assist (12%)

TA’s Media Hosting Programs - results

1,100+ articles generated annually

• Multi-page feature stories

• Hours of quality broadcast

• Pages of online commentary

Reach: 2.77bn on average annually

• Cost to TA: AUD$0.86 to reach 1,000 consumers

Equivalent Advertising Value: AUD$241m on average annually

• Cost to TA: AUD$0.009 to achieve each column inch

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Forward direction – non traditional media

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Responding to the changing media landscape, TA’s hosting programs are:

• Aligning more to global tourism trends

• Making Australia fashionable

• Delivering new news

• Aligning to target traveler sub-segments - Youth, Luxury, Boomers, Family,

Working Holiday Makers, Honeymooners

• Concentrating on quality not quantity

• Multi-media and broadcast targets

Forward direction – new media

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TA is extending its storytelling beyond traditional media by moving into powerful

word-of-mouth advocacy

Visiting Opinion Leaders Program launched in April 2009 - Targets highly

influential online opinion leaders not attached to traditional media channels

They have

• Influence in an area coveted by TA’s target travelers

• High traffic volumes flowing to their online site

• Vast fan bases across multiple countries

They are

• Invited to experience their area of expertise within an Australian environment

They will

• Extend story-telling into non-traditional sectors and ‘passion points’ such as

fashion and style, food, wine and sport

Opinion leader visits to date

Scott Schuman, aka The Sartorialist (New York)

• Rated one of the top 100 design influencers (Time Magazine)

• Rated 20th most powerful blog in the world (The Observer)

& Generates 36 million hits on site annually

Garance Doré (Paris)

• One of the most popular fashion blogs in Europe

• Generates almost 13 million hits on site annually

Yibo FAN or ‘The Colourful Map’ (China)

• One of China’s top travel and youth bloggers

• Nominated as ‘Power Blog 2007 & 2008’ by Sina.com

Lesmads.de (Germany)

• Lifestyle, fashion, design and photography

Generates almost 3 million hits on site annually

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The power of the word

Garance Dore – 30 April 2009 (reprinted in The Sydney Morning Herald)

• “What’s beautiful about Australia is that it feels like home, and at the same time, the edge of the world.”

• “Sydney is a city with a heart of gold.  Like its people, it gets embarrassed when the weather gets a little moody, so much so that it feels obliged to give you a rainbow.”

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Emily (responding to Garance’s blog on 12/05/09

at 11:29pm)

• “I always adore looking at your photos; you’re such a talented photographer. Thanks to you and the Sartorialist, Australia is now on the top of my list of places to visit.”

Social networking

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Social networking is a powerful platform for generating influential commentary

on Australia. TA’s social networking properties are:

• Facebook – organic on-going dialogue platform

• Twitter – organic on-going dialogue platform

• MySpace – tactical marketing campaign supporting Working Holiday Visa

• Bebo – tactical marketing campaign supporting Working Holiday Visa

Facebook - www.fb.australia.com

• Established in May 2008 to support World Youth Day

• Over 265,000 with a growth rate: 1,000+ per day

• Authentic and positive dialogue - Commentary, ideas, travel tips,

photographs, video content shared

• Site is branded by Tourism Australia

• Regular polls of fan base to generate dialogue and content to drive

media commentary and content development

• Next steps - Work with travel trade to offer travel deals

open only to fans

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Facebook has 200 million active users worldwide

Twitter

Launched March 2009 to drive traffic to Facebook fan page• www.twitter.com/SeeAustralia

Extends conversations on Australia between two audiences and two

Platforms• Provides another avenue for authentic and positive dialogue on Australia• TA posts interesting and engaging information on Australia to drive the

conversation between fans and followers• Acts as a conduit for fans and followers to “meet and talk”

Content includes information, links, pictures, questions

More than 2,800 followers – growing at a rate of 200 a week• Twitter is more about the quality of conversation

rather than numbers

Second site: www.twitter.com/ATE09• Event specific to generate conversations and messages

on Australian Tourism Exchange

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Tactical integrated youth campaigns

MySpace and Bebo used in the UK to drive messaging and dialogue on

Working Holiday Visa travel and youth travel opportunities in Australia.

MySpace

• Site highlighted the countless working and experiential opportunities available

to youth aged 18-30. www.myspace.com/workinoz has attracted 70,000 unique

visitors to date.

Bebo

• “The Gap Year” campaign new content initiative produced by Endemol in

partnership with Bebo.

• Travelers from UK and Ireland spent time in Australia promoting WHV by

• Spending their time doing “work experience” placements

• TA supported the Australian leg

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