Australians think that all tropical destinations are the same, a perception fuelled by years of clichéd, traditional advertising. As a result, Tropical North Queensland was losing visitors to overseas competitors.

Australian holidaymakers needed to be reinvigorated and inspired to visit the destination. To achieve this, we needed to change their perception of what paradise meant altogether. ‘1 Day in Paradise’ redefined the meaning of the word ‘paradise’ through authentic storytelling and content.

Instead of making just another 30 second TV commercial, 20 unique filmmakers were challenged to capture their idea of a day in paradise using just a GoPro camera. They created 20 incredibly authentic, personal, inspiring and highly sharable short films that completely encapsulated the diversity of Tropical North Queensland.

This ‘high-end user generated content’ was housed on a custom YouTube channel, supported by cinema & TV commercials, PR and rich media online ads. Seeded to selected blogs, the authentic, adventurous, inspiring nature of the content spread easily thanks to the highly sharable nature of the content.

The official partnership between a tourism destination and GoPro – the world’s most popular action camera and content creator – exposed the content to GoPro’s millions of global social media followers. GoPro liked, favourited and commented on several of the videos, even making one of them its coveted Video of the Day. This led to more sharing of the content on adventure, lifestyle and video content blogs, equating to even more free publicity for the campaign.

The film-makers with the highest media profiles were selected prior to their content being shot in the region. These film-makers were seeded to the media to create interest prior to launch, which resulted in several articles in national newspapers.

A launch event with travel, lifestyle and adventure bloggers was held showcasing the content, which was followed by several stories in influential websites. Morning television talk shows interviewed several of the film-makers and featured their content, driving further views on YouTube.

None of the content would have earned organic views or free publicity had it not been highly authentic, personal, and brilliantly executed. By selecting the right film-makers, work-shopping their story ideas and giving them a degree of creative autonomy, we made sure they would create the kind of video content that gets shared. This inherent shareability of the content above all else was what drove target audience engagement.

The content spread quickly online, on radio and television news programs, newspapers and magazines. The campaign gave our audience a new lens through which to see the destination and inspired them to vacation there. Best of all, Tropical North Queensland experienced a 17% increase in visitor numbers compared to the same period the year before. This was the highest growth rate of all Australian tourist destinations, meaning that Tropical North Queensland led the revival of a struggling tourism industry: 9 million media impressions, 1.1 million YouTube views, GoPro Video of the Day reaching 5.5 million, & 17% increase in visitor numbers.