Virgin and Tourism Australia target US visitors during Oscars broadcast with new campaign
Tourism Australia is teaming up with Virgin Australia for a $4 million advertising blitz during this year’s Oscars to attract visitors from the $2.7 billion US market.
The integrated digital and TV-led campaign, which starts today and runs until March 24, combines Tourism Australia’s ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ destination imagery alongside a Virgin Australia call to action, ‘There’s No Better Way to Get There’.
It is the latest effort in an ongoing collaboration between the two brands under a three year $20 million marketing deal.
Tourism Australia managing director John O’Sullivan, said: “Restaurant Australia has created a great platform for us, particularly within the US, and allows us now to really put our focus on conversion opportunities.
“The journey is such an important part of the overall experience and we are really pleased to be partnering with an airline of the quality of Virgin Australia, whose commitment to world-class customer service is so high.”
The ad will receive significant exposure on air during the Oscars pre-show and Oscars coverage on Good Morning America, as well as paid custom content on Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times websites in combination with takeovers on Yahoo, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal planned as well.
Virgin Australia chief customer officer, Mark Hassell said: “Our latest campaign is an example of Virgin Australia’s significant investment in inbound tourism. Our partnership with Tourism Australia continues to go from strength to strength and we’re delighted to be jointly promoting Australia on the world stage.”
The United States is Australia’s fourth largest international tourism market, with 537,600 US arrivals during the year ending September 2014, up 10.8 per cent. Total annual overnight visitor spending for the US market is currently approximately $2.7bn, with the potential to grow to up to $5.5bn by 2020, according to Tourism Australia’s figures.
Last month Tourism Australia called pitches for the PR accounts in several overseas markets including the US.
In the same month the organisation added a ‘newsroom’ to its marketing armoury with outgoing marketing chief Nick Baker saying brands will become Australia’s new publishers as media owners currently “do not pay enough attention or respect to their lead journalists”.
He told Mumbrella it was in keeping with Tourism Australia’s “philosophy” of shifting its marketing from paid media to “owned and earned” channels. An editor has already been recruited to oversee the operation, with former Weber Shandwick content services direcor Andres Lopez-Varela joining in October.
“We want to be partners with them and recognise the strengths they bring, but it can’t just be about buying media and creating ads anymore,” he said. “I need their skills but not necessarily in the old form.”
Interesting to see them partner with Virgin rather than the ‘national’ carrier, I wonder how many of the 537,600 US arrivals came by Qantas vs. Virgin and would be interesting to see some data in a years time. I like the partnership.
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Did the flying kangaroo or Tourism Australia ditch its agency, who simply changed the uniforms of the super models and the logo? This stuff is stock footage now so it should come dirt cheap…
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Clever collaboration.
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OMG! Could it be any more clichéd? Been There is right, the onboard is QANTAS from years ago.
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how does this work, qantas has hhheeeeeepppssss more US destinations than virgin and way more passengers, just because the 2 bosses of both of the companies had a spat doesnt mean that they should just ditch our national carrier for a forin owend airline (virgin) this makes people think that they have to fly virgin, and have to fly out of los angeles because that is vigins only us destination!!!
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Nice ad for Virgin. Certainly getting their money’s worth. But without Qantas in the game TA aren’t in much of a position negotiate. Wonder how many Americans will be disappointed when they don’t get served oysters in economy. Does this mean we don’t think you can get a decent meal in California?
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Great ad. If people are happy to fly out of LAX than then the wonderful service on VA is for them.
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