Branding a Nation: The film ‘Australia’ a Shakespearean advertising tragedy

Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008)
Originally uploaded by Greenman 2008

It will cost $40 million dollars, it hangs on the success of Baz Luhrmann’s new outback epic ‘Australia’ and Australia’s $65 billion tourism industry depends on it…Tourism Australia’s new  advertising campaign.

"Come to Australia, Come Walkabout”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called Tourism Australia’s last marketing campaign a “rolled gold disaster.” So what is Tourism Australia going to do different this time?

Well, Nick Baker of Tourism Australia said in Professional Marketing, “This is one of those rare opportunities where you get the chance to put everything on the line. And yeah, that’s exciting”

Yes…the talent team at Tourism Australia has handed its creative to a Hollywood film maker to produce an old fashioned television commercial.

With only days before the epic film hits the cinemas, Albert Einstein’s
famous quote comes to mind “The definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Hasn’t
anyone at Tourism Australia noticed or been told that traditional media
is broken, not just TV. Interruptive mass media campaigns are a thing
of the past, only to be used in brand maintenance campaigns, not growth
campaigns.

Why didn’t Tourism Australia spend its $40M on
something really different? Why didn’t they take a leaf out of Social
Media’s new pin-up…Adage’s Marker of the Year and President-elect,
Senator Barack Obama. From an unknown to US President.

From the
start, Senator Barack Obama understood the need to converse and
collaborate with people, not just telling people. His grass-root social
networking campaign is a near perfect example of a truly modern
advertising campaign.

I’m not saying traditional media is all
bad and it has a place. But today, media is very much fragmented and
people consume media differently.

Tourism Minister Martin
Ferguson recently said of the Tourism Australia’s new campaign, “I only
pray that they get it right because so many Australian’s are depending
on us getting it right.”

Sorry Mr Ferguson, I think it’ll take
more than prayer to stop this advertising campaign from becoming a
modern day ‘Shakespearean tragedy’.

I’d love to have $40M to do a Social Media campaign!

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