AUSTRALIA TO THE WORLD: SO WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU?
Tourism Australia has launched a new international tourism campaign via agency M&C Saatchi, Sydney, spearheaded by a 60 second TVC.
According to the PR blurb “The new destination campaign has been developed in recognition of the fact that it is no longer enough for our customers to have a positive awareness of Australia as a great place for a holiday. Whilst Australia is highly desired by tourists worldwide, we need to convert this positive yet passive predisposition towards Australia into an actual intention to travel to the country.
To do this Australia needs to cut through the clutter of sameness in tourism destination marketing, by presenting a compelling single brand proposition about Australia to consumers in all markets.
“Whilst single global creative concepts are common practice in marketing other products such as cars and other consumer goods, this approach is rare among National Tourism Organisations (NTOs).
“The approach adopted in this campaign takes Tourism Australia’s destination marketing efforts to a new level and will provide the opportunity for Australia to lead the market in an increasingly competitive environment in years to come.”
The campaign includes television and print advertising, cooperative and retail activity, digital advertising, outdoor advertising, point of sale, and direct marketing.
While there are standard features of all executions in the campaign, there are subtle variations for each market, through the use of colloquial language translations and the inclusion of different sets of experiences based on consumer research.
This tailoring has been designed from the outset, to enable Tourism Australia to create a campaign that is both globally consistent and locally relevant.
The 60 and 30 second versions of the television commercial feature scenes of a variety of Australian tourism experiences drawn from a broad palette. The scenes show both iconic as well as new motivating experiences.
The talent featured in the television commercial are real, everyday Australians – not experienced, professional actors.
To view the 60 second TVC click HERE.
66 Comments
just wondering which countries is this meant to run in? end line seems very sophomoric.
Upbeat, great Aussie shots and look, but what happened to the soundtrack? Bring back Les, Mo or Jo to give it a great beat to smile along with. May sound old fashioned, but without a great jingle what does a campaign like this have to offer?
Shouldn’t it have a kids choir singing “I still call Australia Home”?
bloody awful.
Its fantastic and so Australian we should all be proud of great work like this and enjoy the benefits of seeing as many tourists as possible come dowunder to enjoy our great country
Bloody great stuff
I love it good on M&C Saatchi for making a real ad
Good stuff. Like it. shame on the first poster for making me look up ‘sophomoric’ in the dictionary.Damo
Lishy’s Australia in a different light campaign shits all over this. It was a deeper richer insight into Australia than some boganesque tagline.
Whilst we find the word ‘bloody’ generic and endearing as part of our collective larican character, and swearing is part of the Aussie way, is this really one of our greatest selling points to the world? Or did the focus groups just bloody love it?
Embarrasing.
I think it works better with “Where the fuck are we?”
Or how about ‘Get your Arses over here!’
bloody great line. Well done.
Obviously the pitch wasn’t decided on the basis of creative?
Just when we thought Tooheys was the biggest load of toss along comes this.
I wonder how many of these bloggers that are always criticising ads have actually done anything other than fill up their days trying to churn out scammy crap.
Makes me proud to be a kiwi.
Woeful. I thought we’d moved on from the 80’s.
I wish we hadn’t. I definately wouldn’t be at my desk right now.
To all you so called aussie expert critics of this ad – guess what – this aint for you so who cares what you think – its for the billion people around the planet who research has already proved LOVE this ad
My mate has already called me from London asking “where the bloody hell are you”. It works. I love it.
Anyone that thinks this ad is not “cool” is clearly in reality an advertising hack at a crap agency who hasnt the balls to admit its bloody great
Whats the fuss about I think its bloody great
Where are all the ethnics that make this country? Are we ashamed?-Damo
You researched a billion people? Holy shit, well done.
‘…its for the billion people around the planet who research has already proved LOVE this ad’. Are you the Saatchi planner on the account?Yes it stands out and that’s the first rule of advertising, but I don’t love it. Let’s face it you can hardly fail to create great visuals with this country, apart from nice shots, the music is dull and it all seems a bit self concious. And why wasn’t the bloody endline supered on screen? Call me old fashioned, but I think ‘bloody hell’ will offend a good % of the target audience.
greetings from overseas.the campaign seems cheap and aimed at 14 year olds. and don’t forget, the target market ain’t your aussie mate in london.can’t imagine bbh, goodby, crispin or wieden coming up with something so juvenile.here’s a little advertising 201 – if research worked, no product would ever fail…a missed opportunity here kids.
Good on you Tourism Australia. It took a lot of courage to make an ad that bucks the trend of just the regular beauty shoots with an inane tag line and stands out amongst the foder dished up most days. Let’s see where the critics are when international arrivals go up a few percentage points and Qantas and other international airlines put on more flights to cater to the demand. Bugger it, it’s bloody terrific.
Damo – where are all the ethnics? Leaves the door open for a lot more ads I reckon.
Average work for a potentially great client. It would’ve been a fun shoot to be on tho’. In my opinion the Whybins’ work was far superior to this.
How many people in Korea know who Delta Goodrum and Richie are? If it was for Aussies I’d agree but think about that last lot of ads and see how many people in other countries would know who any of those people were. Imagine all those Yanks going ‘Marvellous! What a riot.’
It’s disappointing this work was even posted for comment.
Re: old bloke saying “Marvellous”. I’m not from Australia, and I don’t know who he is. Yet it made me smile, and assumed he must be a relatively well-known Aussie, who was also well-known for saying this. People are not stupid. Personally, I thought the ‘Marvellous’ ad was better. Hot chick with twangy voice makes me cringe. However, I have yet to see a tourism ad for any country which inspires me to got there. Go again, Australia.
Disappointed it was posted????I think wanker may be kind! Let’s see your credentials. Enough of this adland bullshit & Mr Lynch’s little scamsheet. Can’t get it through the client? That’s ok, send it to Lynchy, he’ll run it. Then we can stick in AWARD.
Re: 11.08 Spot on, but it should be a bogan stumbling out of a pub, with tigers beanie, flanno and long neck in hand… “where the fuck are ya… ya cunts?”Re: 2.50Get fucked.
Haha.. last post was GOLD – let’s run it!Anyway, average Americans eating Easy Mac waiting for ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ to come back on would definitely find this an entertaining ad – and I’d bet would probably put us on their next holiday plan.To that end, I think this ad is perfect. Good work, M&C.
i’d be surprised if they could run it here in america with that line. does anyone know the status on this??swearing is so cool. like all the kids do it!!!(and TAC about 15 years ago.)stylish? sophisticated? not…
Even though ‘Bloody’ is not actually a swear word, it sounds like one! It’s already been banned in Singapore. Most Asian countries will probably follow suit. Middle America will definitely freak out – and their all-powerful Christian right lobby group will no doubt make sure it’s off the air – even in New York and LA. Some might argue that the campaign will generate lots of free publicity in those markets. But we at the Foreign Office (like our colleagues the Danes at present) don’t believe that any publicity is good publicity. I must admit we are a little concerned and battening down the hatches just in case.
I liked the ad till the end line, it made me cringe. I’ll still come over for a visit. Also, I’ve never seen such a good looking aborigine.
12:50Yeah well i’ve never seen a good looking kiwi you racist prat!I love the ad but i think there should have been people of more racial diversity in there. They were all Anglos…except for the ‘good looking aboriginie’ hey keewee?!…blah!
Stylish and sophisticated? What would be the fucking point of portraying Oz as some pinot drinking, art-appreciating, espresso-sipping mecca of style?As if anyone’s going to come to Australia if they’re after a stylish and sophisticated holiday destination. They want beaches and the outback and fucking sunshine and tourist-eating crocs to walk around all day long in thongs and they like they fact that aussies are friendly and say g’day and that aussie chicks are cute and put out if you ask nicely.Yeah, let’s sell Oz with some ‘stylish and sophisticated’ ads… couldn’t think of a better way to piss $100mill up against the wall.
so, who is going to spend the $$$$ to visit australia then 4:45pm, chavs and rednecks????they don’t even own passports.
Hey 12.50 I think the ‘good looking Aborigine has some Anglo blood in her. Now is that racist or just an informed opinion?
As a Pom, when I visited Oz it was to see Gt Barrier Reef, the bush, kangaroos, eat fish and chips at Doyles, see the Opera house and all the other tourist cliches. The friendly ‘banter’/piss-taking was tolerated because I didn’t want to be a whinging pommie bastard. In all honesty the macho bollocks isn’t your best feature, so why does it underpin your tourism campaign?
Macho bollocks IS our best feature.
Look, Oz is the best bloody country in the world mate – bar none, and we shouldn’t need a bloody ad campaign to get people here. They should realise that and be queuing up at the airports. And if they don’t want to come – fuck em! Who needs them. We’ve got everything we need here. Lets just keep the bastards out and keep Straya for the Strayans.
Irony, well done, didn’t realise you were that sophisticated.
Western Australia’s quite irony.
12:54, that was fucking awful.
Ore-ful
The point that SOMEONE might pick up on is that I’ll bet the Aboriginal forefathers weren’t practising their dancing for 40’000 years just so they could have some fat american takes photos of them.D
Hey D (1:58),Here’s a newsflash. You don’t have to take ads so literally.Do you think David Bechham, Mohammed Ali, and Thorpey really go jogging together? Or did 3 mud-skippers really wait through thousands of years of evolution just so they could taste Guinness beer? Or do women really accost men they don’t know because they’re wearing a particular brand of deodorant?Wake up.
2:17, congrats!!!that will be the first and last time those 3 campaigns will ever be mentioned with this blue collar yawn.comedy!
thats pretty interesting =)
Why when I say ‘I’ve never seen such a good looking aborigine’ am I called a racist, when if I said ‘I’ve never seen such a good looking Pom’ no one would bat an eyelid. Maybe you’re the racist.
7:05…..If you don’t understand the implication……
The implication, 7:05am is that you seem to think that aboriginies are ugly, hense the comment.The pom reference about poms is immaterial.As such, sir, you are a racist.
Regardless of all this, it is refreshing to see honesty in a press release:”The talent featured in the television commercial are real, everyday Australians – not experienced, professional actors”Finally they worked out Delta cant act.
Fuck me! only on an aussie site would you find a line like “I think that aborigine has anglo blood” that’s hilarious. Where the bloody hell are you? I not in Australia, thank fuck!
http://www.whothebloodyhellareyou.com
The problem with this campaign is not the tagline (which I have to say I don’t mind – one look at this board will tell you Aussies use far more elaborate expletives than ‘bloody’). The issue I have with this campaign is that it presents a one-dimensional picture of Oz that is not simply antiquated but will fail to do for Australian tourism what needs to be done. In short, the main issue facing Australia is not in getting people to go there but to go back. If you recall, Americans were briefly obsessed by Oz in the eighties thanks to Croc Dundee, Neighbours and such, and came in droves. In the nineties, their numbers dropped off and Asians picked up the slack. Meanwhile, the ATC was patting itself on the back for keeping the figures steady, pumping out the same predictable Rock and Reef marketing strategy, and quietly ignoring the fact that, once Asians got bored with Australia cos they thought they’d seen all there is to see, the tourist bubble would burst. It’s a fact (and proven throughout tourism advertising worldwide) that you attract repeat visitors to a destination by advertising more than just the same old icons, by showing that a place has diversity and depth and is worth your money to go back and explore. I’m not saying Australia should be shown as a nation of Pinot-quaffing, art-gazing wankers, but is that any better than portraying Oz as a land of nicely-bronzed, koala-cuddling Paul Hogan wannabes? There’s 20 million of us, and we don’t all ride kangaroos and live in houses over-looking Sydney Harbour. Let’s show that we’re more than some hackneyed cliche so that the world might actually take a long-term interest in us.Apologies for the length – a lot to get off the chest.
I can sympathise with you…couldn’t afford a bigger track?
Just another boring tourism ad. zzzzzzz
All the publicity being generated is serving it well, but seems like an ex pat pommy take on the uncouth Australian stereotype …. The poms had great pleasure in banning it too.
Britain had made a big and free advertisment for Australia !!! (haa… haaa….)