On Friday 21 August 2020, an American public radio broadcaster mispronounced an Australian icon — the emu. Instead of emu (ee-mew) he called it an ‘EE-MOO’, then insisted he was right about it.

It caused uproar in Australia because the emu is a highly unique indigenous Australian bird, which is on our national crest. To mispronounce its name is the equivalent of mispronouncing America’s Bald Eagle.

The internet lit up.

Tourism Australia decided to defend the bird on our national crest, and capitalise on the PR opportunity for the weird and wonderful animals that live on this continent.

We needed to insert ourselves into the conversation so that when people were getting excited about emus, they were reminded about the incredible holiday destination the emu calls home.

Within just ten hours, EE-MOO SAYS was born — the Emu that took on American academia.

Our response needed to be fast and digital first to capitalise on the cultural moment that became known ‘The Emu War’ on social media, and becoming the leading news story of the day.

Within just ten hours Tourism Australia built a quick, clickable and shareable tool called ‘EE-MOO SAYS’ — a tongue in cheek interactive audio microsite that mispronounces everything Americans hold dear.

EE-MOO is a tongue in cheek interactive digital tool that mispronounces everything Americans hold dear — their favourite animals (“BALD EE-ARGLE!), heroes (“A-BREE-HAME LINCOLN!”), sports (“BAHSSS-BOLL!) and food (“WHFFFF-IPPED CHEZ!”).

It was concepted and built within ten hours to capitalise on the cultural moment that became known on Twitter as ‘The Emu War’. Aussies got behind it on social media, including even an international ambassador.

It wasn’t long before the offending academic saw the error in his ways, and issued an apology.

In just over a week the website had:

- Mispronounced pronounced 13,462 words

- Been visited by 45 countries

- Maintained an average visit duration of 1 min 39

- Been retweeted by an international diplomat

- Helped end ‘The Emu War of 2020’.