The Ghan takes a new direction in fresh spots via Clems BBDO Adelaide and viral sensation ‘Pogo’
Great Southern Rail has engaged Clemenger BBDO Adelaide to create a campaign that shows The Ghan in a new light, highlighting the rich holiday experience of travelling on the iconic train.
Says Steve Kernaghan, Great Southern Rail director of marketing, sales and distribution: “We wanted this campaign to look distinctly different from our previous advertising and for that matter, from every other travel commercial in Australia.
“We’re fortunate that The Ghan has a very high level of awareness, but our product has changed a lot in recent years and this campaign is designed to reflect the more contemporary holiday experience that The Ghan now offers.”
To achieve this brief, Clemenger BBDO Adelaide engaged the services of Perth based YouTube sensation “Pogo”. Pogo’s work is wildly popular on YouTube with his Snow White and UP themed videos achieving nearly 8 Million views. He has also worked with Disney, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nickelodeon and Warner Bros.
The production team spent a week on the train capturing the unique experiences and activities that can only happen on this iconic Australian rail journey, and turned them into spectacular vision and beautiful music.
Says Karl Fleet, Clemenger BBDO Adelaide ECD: “It was an exciting process. Pogo (Nick Bertkle) shot it all and edited everything. It was a journey that produced something quite special.”
30 & 60 edits have gone to TV /Cinema and the 2-minute remixes have just been released online. The Ghan remix was picked as video of the day on Youtube and Google+ official facebook pages. In its first 2 days, the video has had over 115,000 views.
Agency: Clemenger BBDO Adelaide
ECD: Karl Fleet
Producer: Yvonne Karabatsos
Art Director: Oliver Prenton
Copy writer: Matt O’Grady
Account Director: Bryce Coombe
Account Coordinator: Cait Foxwell
Director: Nick Bertke
Production Producer Garry Pickford
Production Company: Pogomix
Anna Booth – Marketing Manager
Steve Kernaghan – Director of Sales & Marketing
5 Comments
sick spot guys – well done.
Apparently you’re not supposed to understand a word of this. So it’s an outstanding success.
On a personal level, I like its style, soundtrack and flavour – it appeals to my lifestyle and tastes. It gets some cool points for sure
I also agree that it is to some degree original and distinctive, although the whole tourism category is currently in love with the concept of grabbing YouTube heroes and getting them to deliver real/natural stuff that plays out well on social media. This is in the top tier of this style, but is following what is now a well trodden path
Where I am a little troubled is the match to the traditional market for premium rail travel – it has always been a conservative 55+ couples audience. There is a reason that most times you see a Ghan ad, the fare advertised is a pensioner discount. Will that market take to the work of a 24yo electronica artist? Time will tell
If they have adjusted their overall strategy and product (and price) to appeal to a younger market, it could be an interesting development – based on their website and their packages, I think not
Wish em the best of luck, rail tourism needs a boost
I love Pogo’s stuff, and this gives me the same goosebumps. Beautifully shot too. Well done Clems.
Hi Mack,
There’s a dire need for inventive forms of digital marketing now that on-demand and social media is eradicating traditional methods. Entertainment and artistry has become equally if not more important than information in today’s world of thumbnails, Likes and ad-block software. If I don’t want to share it, and you don’t want to share it, it’s doomed. And nobody’s going to share an infomercial.
The Ghan piece has surpassed the reach of most tourism bureaus in Australia by many times. The internet isn’t the youngster’s playground it was several years ago – YouTube has replaced the television for a very broad demographic.
I’ve seen many agencies now try to copy my work, but their failure is in the assumption that it’s a formula to be mimicked and not an artwork that in fact took many weeks of craft and musical composition. The result of that assumption is generally nothing more than a messy, meaningless edit with neither soul nor sense that was probably formulated by 20 board members in an afternoon.
I’m very proud of how my work turned out. I feel it was a much needed fresh illustration of an experience that would be otherwise grossly understated by a PowerPoint presentation posing as a commercial.