Tourism Queensland required an engaging global campaign to raise the awareness of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and reflect the brand’s positioning concept – ‘Life Above’.

The objective was to reach ‘Global Experience Seekers’ on a mass scale, drive them to a branded website and expose them to the unique beauty and experiences available on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

We created ‘the best job in the world’, advertised the position through online job listings and used a comprehensive PR strategy to drive the recruitment campaign and expose Global Experience Seekers to the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Digital word-of-mouth propelled the campaign, along with mainstream online news outlets. Social networking sites allowed us to communicate with applicants and keep them engaged throughout the campaign.

No single tourism campaign (and potentially no single campaign) has ever had such a significant global reach across the spectrum of media. Each applicant became an online ambassador – passionately promoting the region to their personal network. Global coverage included CNN stories, BBC documentaries, TIME magazine articles and everything in between. Media coverage has been estimated at over $US100M from a campaign budget of $US1.2M.

To increase global appeal, Tourism Queensland shared with us the challenge of delivering an international awareness campaign for the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Tourism Queensland wanted to achieve news coverage in key markets, 14,000 job applications and see consumer-generated content (over and above video applications). The target audience was defined as ‘Global Experience Seekers’. These people were primarily targeted across key markets that have a higher propensity to travel to Australia – UK, USA, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, India, China, and Korea. Existing research from Tourism Queensland and Tourism Australia, plus learnings from key international markets, informed our strategy.

Recruitment (10th- 12th January 2009):Website launch coincided with a media launch event on Hamilton Island and media releases sent out in key markets.Application (12th January- 22nd February 2009):Established Twitter updates, YouTube channel, MySpace and Facebook pages to keep consumers and the media updated on the recruitment process. Video content spread virally.Shortlisting (2nd April 2009):Top 50 applicants announced and Wild Card voting began, this pushed applicants to generate personal PR strategies to garner votes.

Interviewing (3rd May 2009):Video content of the applicant’s journeys to be supplied, applicant blogs continue.Announcement (6th May 2009):Media conference on Hamilton Island, media releases.

Employment (1st July 2009):Successful candidate begins six months of blogging and supplying video content for the brand’s website.

The unprecedented digital response to the campaign has meant that the plan has expanded beyond the original scope, however, the structure of the strategy and communication plan are still being delivered.

No single tourism campaign has ever had such a significant global reach and generated such a high volume and highly impassioned response from consumers.

- 34,648 applicants from 201 countries created 610 hours of video content which passionately promotes our product.- The Top 50 applicants campaigned and received over 450,000 votes for the Wild Card.- In 56 days islandreefjob.com had 6,849,504 visits, 47,548,514 page views with an average of 8.62 minutes spent on the site.

- 43,603 online news stories about the job.- 231,355 blog mentions.- Global coverage included CNN stories, BBC documentaries, TIME magazine articles and everything in between.

- Media coverage has been estimated at over $US100M** from a campaign budget of $US1.2M.Achieving worldwide awareness of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. And educating travellers about the unique experiences available there.*Web-coded countries (only 195 countries are recognised by the UN).**Value of media coverage estimated by Tourism Queensland, as at 19/3/09.

The strategy differed from a traditional tourism campaign. We created ‘the Best Job in the World’ – anyone, from any country could apply. And the best thing about the generously-paid position was its location, the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Online job listings and small banner ads promoted the best job in the world online. Along with a mainstream PR campaign, we used social networking sites to spread news, promote user-generated content and establish awareness of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and drive desire to travel there. The project scope incorporated set stages for additional PR and media opportunities, but also relied on constant contact with applicants through channels such as Twitter and website news updates. When people apply for a job they tend to tell their friends and families – when they applied for our job, they told the whole world and campaigned for Wild Card votes.

The digital media campaign was created for Tourism Queensland, a government industry body designed to promote Queensland as a tourist destination domestically and internationally.

When tourists plan an island holiday, destinations such as Hawaii, the Maldives and the Caribbean Islands immediately spring to mind. Although the Great Barrier Reef is a world-heritage listed natural wonder, the islands of the region are relatively unknown. With a budget of $US1.2M to execute a global marketing campaign, we needed to make the brand newsworthy and engaging. Rather than a traditional media buy, we would need to rely on people spreading their content through social networks.