Overseas common sense rules for new Tourism Australia Ad

With Tourism Australia?s excellent Australia Tourism Exchange over for another year and a significant degree of resulting optimism in the air, it?s great to see that hard facts are beginning to emerge to prove the whingers wrong about Tourism Australia?s new ?There?s Nothing Like Australia? TV ad and campaign.

Reports in The Australian say that  the campaign, which some Aussies have described as embarrassing, has struck a chord with international tourist,s which let?s face it, is exactly what it was intended to do, with The Australian saying that analysis of "chatter" on social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook in overseas markets, suggesting the $180 million campaign is already achieving its objective.

The report goes on to say that data compiled by online measurement company Webtrends showed 70% of people talking about the campaign online liked it, and more importantly for Tourism Australia, 64% of the positive comments came from people based in the key target market of the US.

Tim Riches, an executive with Future Brand, a company that charts the world's most popular countries in marketing terms, said that while critics had accused the ad of looking like something out of the 1980s, that would help attract tourists, adding, "It's old-fashioned and a little crude in some respects", "But that is its strength."

The report also says, ?There?s nothing like the launch of a new tourism advertising campaign to draw out the critics.?  ?They flock like seagulls to a discarded chip on Bondi beach, screeching, squawking and tearing the object of their attention to pieces,? but as I said last week from ATE, it is time to for Aussies to give the ?tall poppy syndrome? a rest and give the campaign a ?fair go?!

Overseas operators and agents I met last week at ATE loved the campaign and the ad and thought it would most certainly appeal in their home countries, much more so than previous campaigns, except of course for the classic shrimp on the barbie one!