Tourism Oz boss: Comparing our TV ad with the Opera House film is like comparing apples and pears
Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy has hit back at claims by Host CEO Anthony Freedman that the Sydney Opera House’s new long-form film promotes the country better than the There’s Nothing Like Australia ad, saying that it’s “like comparing apples and pears.”
He told Mumbrella: “ ‘Ship Song’ is a beautiful, four-minute online music video, against a short TV commercial targeting a global consumer, across 30 international markets. To put the two up together is like comparing apples and pears.”
The ad, which was created by DDB and launched in May last year, was based on research Australians’ desire to promote the country overseas. McEvoy said:
“We know from our research that Aussies want to help promote Australia to people overseas, and that’s what this campaign is all about. They are the experts on what makes Australia unlike anywhere else, not owners of advertising agencies like Anthony Freedman.”
“At the launch of this campaign under the banner There’s Nothing Like Australia, you had 30,000 real life Australians sharing their own favourite Australian place or experience with the world, making it one of Australia’s most successful consumer-generated promotions ever.”
He added: “Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but the fact is that this campaign is working, and hitting the mark with people in the key international markets like Asia is what really matters. In China for example – our fastest growing and most valuable inbound tourism market – 97 per cent of a recent sample of people who had seen the campaign were motivated to the point of researching a trip to Australia.”
McEvoy said that a better example to compare the Sydney Opera House piece with is the tourism body’s Making Tracks campaign, which won best of show at this year’s IAB Awards.
http://youtu.be/bQjuiQxjoYY
“The TNLA TV spot is doing a fantastic job but if you want to compare apples with apples, have a look at our award-winning Making Tracks campaign, which has generated more than 2.7 million views on YouTube since being launched around the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in February,” he added.
“This campaign was deliberately designed as a long-form online video composition, like Ship Song for the Sydney Opera House. Incidentally, Ship Song is fantastic and we’re promoting it heavily through our own digital and social media channels, including our 1.8 million Facebook fans.”
topics
Andrew McEvoy
Anthony Freedman
DDB
Marketing
Media
Sydney Opera House
The Ship Song
Three Drunk Monkeys
Tourism Australia
Anthony Freedman is kidding himself if he thinks the Ship Song video would be a great ad for Australia.
As the tourism boss said, while its a nice song and we feel chuffed to see a nice video about the opera house with singers some of us might recognise, I don’t think it would do a lot to make people visit.
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Um… Tourism Australia have run some of the most expensive and non-performing campaigns in history.
Australia the Movie
Where the blood hell are ya
Oprah
Must be nice to have a client with bottomless pockets and little to no accountability for your actions.
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Hi Govt insider,
its even better to be a client with bottomless pockets
Looking at you Telstra…
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im interested to find out what the objectives / goals of the sydney opera house campaign were and if the targets were met / exceeded.
was it just an awareness campaign, was to increase visitation / attendance, have more concert’s being booked there or a combination of all these aspects .
Any chance that Mumbrella can delve into the midsts and find out this info? if it’s already been written about, can you provide link?
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