In 1986, Crocodile Dundee introduced Americans to the Land Down Under. The film put Australia on the map and is one of only a few 1980s classics to have not been rebooted in Hollywood. Until now.

In January, 2018, the iconic Australian franchise returned with “Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home.” The movie featured American Danny McBride as Brian Dundee, the long-lost son of Mick Dundee, and Australian Chris Hemsworth as his sidekick, Wally Jr. The all-Australian supporting cast had an impressive roll call, including Hugh Jackman, Margot Robbie, Russell Crowe, Ruby Rose, Liam Hemsworth and Isla Fisher.

The social accounts of the cast were carefully used to drive a huge amount of engagement and speculation, leading fans to see the “official trailer” during Super Bowl LII. On the world’s biggest stage, the truth of the campaign was revealed: it was all an elaborate tourism ad for Australia.

We developed three phases to create a social frenzy, without actually making a film:

I. TEASE

To drive social engagement before the Super Bowl, we launched “Dundee” a month out the way any studio would: with social handles, a social buy, an IMDB page, PR and OOH. We released four teasers through our talents’ social, each designed to tap into their combined millions of unique fans.

II. REVEAL

Our :60 Super Bowl TVC revealed the gag—turning into a flagrant excuse to highlight Australia’s dazzling locations, food and wine—and acted as our campaign’s “social flip switch.”

III. INVITE

When the TVC aired, the campaign flipped from “film” to “tourism,” directing people to Australia.com to explore itineraries via a dedicated campaign marketplace. Importantly, our “tease” phase wasn’t just for comedy: each teaser built our audience pool that we retargeted with “Why Australia?” content we produced simultaneously featuring McBride.

By seeking to own social before the game, we generated the highest digital engagement of any brand pre-Super Bowl (according to Amobee) and were the most viewed Super Bowl campaign overall (per Ad Age and Visible Measures). In addition:

We generated 101M video views on social with an estimated Social Ad Value of $52M USD from talent alone.

Social media reached approximately 890M across multiple platforms with 80% US based.

“Dundee” won the Twitter Brand Bowl for the Travel category, and our Twitter trailer release exceeded the Super Bowl benchmark for View Rate by 50%, generating an engagement rate of 5.28% (2x above SB benchmark).

Our teasers reported the highest Ad Recall of any study ever in the Entertainment category for Facebook BrandEffect and outperformed 93% of category studies for intent.

Overall, the campaign lead to a 900% increase in organic booking inquiries via Australia.com, exceeding all previous brand metrics.

Tourism Australia historically spreads investment across the year; so in order to break through, we instead needed to own a single moment: the Super Bowl.

We knew running a :60 TVC alone would fail to generate the ROI we needed (and that the Australian government demanded!). We also knew doing more of the same for Tourism Australia—beautiful sweeping shots of coastlines and vineyards—would simply be social wallpaper and wouldn’t attract the attention of our elusive, yet digitally engaged, High Value Traveler audience.

We therefore made our best effort not to create a traditional tourism ad campaign but rather a PR idea designed to light social on fire with the biggest (and let’s face it, only) weapon available to us: the social reach of “Aussiewood” actors like Chris Hemsworth, Margot Robbie and Hugh Jackman, who we knew would do just about anything for their country (and nearly for bloody free!).

Out-of-region travel from the US has grown by 11% in recent years, and yet Australia’s share of US tourism has been stagnant at only 1.3%. Because while the world loves the idea of an Australian holiday (Australia ranks third in the world in desire), the “tyranny of distance” means we struggle to convert that desire to visitation.

With Europe and the Caribbean so close to the US, Tourism Australia’s traditional campaigns promoting wine and beaches weren’t presenting a compelling enough argument for the extra 10 hours on a plane. Add in the fact that we’re outspent in an industry that spends over $5.6B a year, and we simply needed to do something different.

Our tasks were clear and vital: we needed to break Australia out of the tourism sea-of-sameness in a way that made us a) top of mind b) different and c) drove US intent to book today.