**UPDATE: Submissions now closed. Check out the Short-list here
The department of Tourism in Queensland, Australia have created a new position: “The Best Job in the World”. The job’s most important duty is to report to Tourism Queensland (and to the world) to let us know what’s taking place on the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. They’re willing to pay AUS$150 000 (US$ 100 000) for a 6 month contract to the right person.
They launched a website and a global campaign to fill the position.
The business objectives of creating such a program are multi-tiered… the last of which I believe is actually filling the role.
The following is a list of successes that Queensland Tourism has achieved, even before filling the position.
1. Awareness
How: Created a campaign that resonated with the people of the world and sparked interest in:
• The Great Barrier Reef
• The conservation of the islands and natural habitats
• Tourism to the area
2. Attainable Aspiration
Queensland Tourism put the greatest asset Queensland has to offer in the centre of the campaign and made it attainable to the world’s citizens. They targeted the salary of the position to an audience that would find that to be a lot of money, thereby grabbing their attention and focusing interest on an area of the world most believe (incorrectly) is out of their budget range for vacation.
They featured the benefits of the region, with a focus on what the applicant will get out of the experience (not what Queensland Tourism will get out of the experience) and they gave the audience a clear call to action and a reasonable set of tasks relating to the scope of the prize. In this case, submit a 60sec video explaining why you’re qualified for the position based on a handful of clear parameters.
3. Enabled global conversation about the islands of the Great Barrier Reef
Queensland Tourism created a campaign that invites people to participate via social media: to apply and to spread the story to social networks, thereby generating even greater awareness and enthusiasm via credible advocates, the applicants themselves.
They enabled promotion to come from the media and bloggers of the world – groups only too happy to spread the message. They gave them all the assets needed to tell the story and gave them a credible place to link to when referencing the story – all in a manner that explained the program clearly, with a focus on benefits to applicants.
4. Inclusive, not exclusive
Made it multilingual: optimized the languages to include the maximum reach in target countries: English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German. The potential audience:  est.1.872 billion with a focus on the countries that will provide the highest possible return on investment with tourism dollars.
5. Short, medium and long-term results
• First, launched the campaign with as much media reach as possible (both bought and earned globally).
• Second, maintain the campaign with “rolling thunder” as the applicants come in, as finalists are chosen and when the candidate is chosen.
• Third, set up the winner with the tools to continue advocacy from a pre-baked audience with potentially unlimited content-creation capabilities.
Preparedness is a key factor in this campaign, Queensland Tourism made sure all of the global affiliates and stakeholders were well versed in the program. So far they’ve kept the messaging focused on the benefits to applicants in the program. They’re transparent about all of their motives, as illustrated in a recent interview on “As it Happens” on CBC radio in Canada.
Shana Pereira, the Regional Director for the Americas for Tourism Queensland, stated the program objectives and answered a question about the marketing benefits clearly.
CBC: “Is at least part of this campaign to raise awareness, tourism knowledge of Hamilton Island?
Shana Pereira “It’s to raise tourism knowledge and awareness not only of Hamilton Island, but all of the islands of the Great Barrier Reef and of Queensland, Australia… this day and age, you really need an innovate way to cut through all of the travel marketing that is out there. “
Listen to full interview here: As it Happens, Jan.14 2009 Part 3
The results so far:
Coverage on hundreds of leading blogs including:
Boing Boing
Neatorama
radicaltrust
and in the traditional media including:
The BBC TV
CBC Radio
New York Times Newspaper
FoxNews Web
… and thousands of other stories from over 50 countries, in dozens of languages.
The current “Fan Favorite” is “Carmen” from Alberta, Canada. She’s leading the pack with 7189 views of her video, a 4-star rating from web visitors and support from fellow Canadians who would be only too happy to live vicariously through her as they suffer an insufferably cold winter.
Learn more about the job here. If you get it, I’d be happy to come down and help you out for a few weeks a year!
**UPDATE: Submissions now closed. Check out the Short-list here
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3 Responses to “The Best Job in the World may also be the Best Social Media Campaign in the World”
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January 26th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
From Twitter, Paullyoung pointed out a black eye on this campaign. Here is how the conversation went:
@paullyoung writes:
not quite ‘best SM campaign’ – they burnt trust with a fake vid: http://bit.ly/Op6L I blogged on it here: http://bit.ly/16EGw
@collindouma replies:
I’m sad to hear about the astroturfing. The campaign is still worth watching, even with that black eye
@paullyoung replies:
lots of negative press in Aus leading from that, really undermined the credibility of what was a great concept
@collindouma replies
oh man… they so didn’t need to even do that video. That is a sign of a client with cold feet not believing in the medium.
@paullyoung replies:
absolutely – from the reports it was actually the agency trying to force more ‘viral’ – chick in vid was agency employee
Interesting how this story continues to develop. Although i have not seen any mention of the “Astroturfing” on my radar in Canada, I wonder how much this will impact what is actually a really great idea.
January 26th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
http://www.twitter.com/communicable tweets;
thank you for sharing – what a great campaign idea! Sent it around to add to our list of brainstorming inspirations
March 4th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
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