Nori bags Tourism Australia campaign

Recently lauded State and Federal cooperation in tourism marketing in Australia and in particular overseas appears to be have been thrown out of the tourism window, with New South Wales Minister for Tourism, Sandra Nori saying that the capability of the Federal Government to market Australia overseas has been called into question with the banning of a controversial tourism commercial in the UK.

Ms Nori said that the tagline was ineffective and that she believes more thought should have been put into the campaign. She added, “If anyone thinks that any publicity is good publicity, they don’t know the first thing about marketing.” 

“Perhaps there’ll be a little bit of attention drawn to the ads initially but at the end of the day a multi-million dollar campaign can’t be run because we’ve got one word in there that is banned in one of our key markets.”

Australian Tourism Export Council director, Matthew Hingerty, disagreeing with Ms Nori, said controversy can be a good thing.  “You only have to look at Paul Hogan all those years ago that generated a little bit of controversy,” he said.  “I don’t think this will significantly affect the campaign, in fact it may well leverage it up if it gets English people talking about Australian tourism.”

Ms Nori’s comments contrast those made by her Executive Director and General Manager of Tourism New South Wales, John O’Neill very recently during an interview with The Mole regarding New South Wales’ performance in the National Tourism Awards.

When questioned, “What is your opinion of the new Tourism Australia ‘where the bloody hell are you’ ads, Mr.O’Neill replied, “look, personally I quite like them”.  “I think the content is great”.  “I don’t want to comment on the tag line, that’s for other people”.

”What really matters ultimately is not what I or any other marketer thinks, it’s what happens in the target markets, and they appear to have done a very thorough job of concept research, and frankly, by default therefore, there is an admission that the previous campaign was a failure”.

Clearly the ads have created tremendous interest in the UK and therefore heightened and enhanced the profile of Australia as a destination.  It should be remembered that it is only on TV the ads have been banned in the UK and that they will continue in all other media.

A recent street poll in London showed 100% support for the ads by the public, with little UK public understanding why they had been banned, but tremendously increased interest in Australia.

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