In 1986, Crocodile Dundee introduced Americans to the land down under. The iconic film put Australia on the map and has stood as one of only a few 1980s classics to not be 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 of Hollywood heavyweights, including Hugh Jackman, Margot Robbie, Russell Crowe, Ruby Rose, Liam Hemsworth and Isla Fisher.

Teaser films and a promotional campaign encouraged fans to tune in to see the “official movie trailer” during Super Bowl LII. However, 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 media frenzy without actually making a film:

I. TEASE

To drive PR before the Super Bowl, we launched “Dundee” a month out, the way any studio would: a website, social handles, an IMDB page, PR, digital and OOH. We released four teasers through our talent’s social, each designed to arouse more suspicion than the last.

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 acting as our campaign’s “PR 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, which we retargeted with “Why Australia?” content we produced simultaneously, featuring McBride.

Dundee was the #1 most-viewed Super Bowl campaign (AdAge/VisibleMeasures) and drove more PR and engagement than any other brand pre-Super Bowl (Amobee).

We broke out of the tourism sea-of-sameness, being covered by consumer media like People, Buzzfeed and Good Morning America, plus Hollywood trades like the Hollywood Reporter and Variety. By creating an entertainment-centric idea, not traditional “ads”, we reached the front page of Reddit and generated 14,310 PR mentions, a potential reach of 7.7B and equivalent advertising value of$84.4M.

This was effective, brand-building entertainment: 78% of travelers felt “Dundee” differentiated Australia; it increased desirability by 50%, with 83% increase in intent to book, and generated over 250,000 leads. Dundee had the highest Ad Recall of any study ever in the Entertainment category for Facebook BrandEffects and outperformed 93% of category studies for intent.

By every metric, this is the most successful tourism campaign in Australia’s history.

One of the most highly anticipated and talked about movies of 2018... was actually an elaborate tourism campaign for Australia.

For two weeks in January, Tourism Australia convinced the world that a new Crocodile Dundee film starring Danny McBride and Chris Hemsworth was on the horizon. An unprecedented campaign built to transcend the tourism category and become part of pop culture, Dundee rose to the top of the Super Bowl and the entertainment world. Not only has the campaign increased Tourism Australia’s organic booking inquiries by 900%, it’s also sparked a worldwide movement to turn the sequel into a reality.

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

We therefore made our best effort to not just create a beautiful tourism campaign, but rather an entertainment idea designed to drive the PR and social machine with the biggest weapon available to us: the power 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, 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 (we rank 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 near the US, Tourism Australia’s traditional campaigns promoting our wine and beaches weren’t presenting a compelling enough argument for the extra 10 hours on a plane. Add to that the fact we’re outspent in an industry that spends over $5.6B a year, 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.