Tourism Australia collaborates with YouTube for new marketing campaign

By Caroline Oudin and Loumpheany Preap

This article entitled “Tourism Australia collaborates with YouTube for new marketing campaign” was written by Mary Jones and it was published on October 15^th 2010 on canadaupdates.com, which is a website that initially informs people about the immigration process in the country. The article deals with a new digital tourism marketing campaign between Tourism Australia and Youtube.

In this article, IT contributes to tourism because it enables the promotion of Australia. Indeed, according to Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia, Youtube is a marketing tool to broadcast a new vision of Australia. Thanks to the video, the sound and creativity, the marketing campaign is more efficient and will have more impact on the web users. Tourism Australia decided to create a new tourism marketing campaign, focused on digital support. This initiative led the DMO to a partnership with Youtube, offering the opportunity to develop social media marketing via videos.

The initial aim of such collaboration is to show Australia as the top exciting destination to visit in the world, focusing on one of the most symbolic structure of the country (Sydney Opera House) as a key point for activities. Also, the DMO is able to show potential consumers the attracting experiences available on site (music, culture, etc.). More significantly, this collaboration with Youtube was useful in order to bring the Youtube Symphony Orchestra 2011 to Australia. Indeed, it not only enabled musicians to audition but it also implied million of views through the social media. This partnership is a clear opportunity for Tourism Australia to expand its online presence, even if a study conducted by travel social network WAYNE revealed that in 2010 Tourism Australia is the most popular national DMO in social media (http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/news/647-tourism-australia-is-the-most-popular-national-dmo-in-social-media).

The relevancy of this article clearly lays in the fact that it proves, once more, the usefulness of the social media. Youtube, in particular, is one of the top social media innovations, being strategically used by tourism industries such as hotel chains or DMOs. Wondering why companies opt for such a tool, it is to understand this choice. Indeed, broadcasting on Youtube is easy and quicker than other technological devices. A video catches more attention than a simple marketing campaign on the TV. On Youtube, the online user will look for the video by typing on the search bar tool whereas on TV, the marketing campaign won’t have the same effect because other advertisement will be diffused at the same time. Moreover we can guess that the cost of broadcasting on Youtube is cheaper than advertising on TV channels and it reaches more target audiences.

As far as we are concerned, we believe that this is an interesting topic, as the use of social media as a marketing tool is a growing phenomenon.

Source: picture from our personal files

The power of social media: Entertainment on VisitNorway.com became viral

On VisitNorway’s homepage you can play a web game called “Holmenkollen ski jump game“. The DMO promoted it through its Facebook page and on other social medias, which is today a pretty common process. However, as the Tnooz website pinpoints it (http://www.tnooz.com/2010/11/11/news/how-a-tourist-board-got-a-genuine-viral-hit-and-welcomed-hackers/?utm_source=Tnooz+Mailing+List&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=c4967abfd1-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN) the buzz that this game created became incredible and beyond the company’s expectations: players started sharing results on social networks, uploading videos of their winning entries on YouTube. These clips were viewed more than 25,000 times and double the number of views of the VisitNorway YouTube channel! Hackers even managed to get into the system in order to improve their scores.

Today, it is not obvious to find the good way to promote a destination or a brand, and create the buzz. Indeed, everyone wants to achieve a success like this and then it becomes harder to stand out from the crowd. Moreover, the use of social media is a real phenomenon that encourages originality and reactivity. Consequently, the competition is high, and finally the example of Norway shows us that simplicity and fun make a good mix.

The “virality” provoked by the game was unexpected. Benefits from this “fast spread” are apparent (awareness, free promotion), but the buzz remains difficult to control by the company. Moreover, “virality” of social Medias can also have negative impacts. Another article on Tnooz shows seven of the best travel viral videos. “United breaks Guitars” is cited as the more viewed and did not do some good to the company. The major difficulty is to predict whether a hit will be viral or not. The success and the positive impacts of this Holmenkollen game on the DMO’s website were hardly foreseeable.

Yet, DMOs seek this kind of effect because customers have become vehicle for information. Actually, we are more likely to find content created by an internet user than by the brand itself when looking for information about the 20 most well-known brands in the world. DMO wonder what the recipe to create a viral hit may be. They firstly need to know what the most used tools on the web are. For instance, studies have shown that social media are more used than email to recommend links on the web and that the Twitter button is the most displayed on blogs. They also need to think about the effect they are seeking. Do they want to increase their visibility through customer or reinforce engagement through interaction with customer? As Liana Evans underlines “viral isn’t Really Social Media (…) viral aims to quickly create buzz, and social media aims to build engagement opportunities with fans.” In the case of creating a buzz, it has to be a special occasion, in order to take profit of the success encountered. This will make customers talking about the brand and raise awareness but this on a very short period. The success of the game shows that entertainment and simple concepts seduce lots of internet users. But too much “virality” can create confusion and people weariness. Social Medias are good way to promote a company image, or a destination, but remains hard to manage.

The main challenge for DMOs is to find the best ways to succeed with social medias. Is creating a buzz, the best way to promote a destination and are social Medias the best tools to create a buzz?

Do you want to have fun?

Visit http://www.visitnorway.com/holmenkollen/

To see Tnooz selection of best travel viral videos:

http://www.tnooz.com/2010/04/26/news/seven-of-the-best-travel-viral-videos-of-all-time/

Photo retrieved from:

http://agens.no/2010/01/holmenkollen-ski-jump-for-iphone/

Sources:

http://www.reseaux-professionnels.fr/autour-du-web-20/1213-viralite-de-linformation-et-medias-sociaux.html

http://www.christophedasilva.com/blog/2010/04/01/le-bouton-de-partage-de-twitter-est-le-plus-repandu-sur-les-blogs/

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1735566/understanding-that-viral-isnt-really-social-media