M&C Saatchi

Client: Tourism Australia
Product: n/a
Title: Matesong
Media: UM
Country: Australia
Date Of Campaign: 16/12/2019

Background: With Brexit looming, Tourism Australia anticipated a decline in British tourists (who spend $3.3B yearly). Big vacations were simply less of a focus in the context of such extreme uncertainty. Our brief was to remind high value travelers from the UK that Australia (a country, literally on the other side of the planet) was a holiday destination well worth considering.

Idea: Australia isn’t the closest holiday destination for Britain, but we are their closest mates. We used this insight to create Matesong - a 3-minute ballad, delivered by Britain’s favourite Aussie, Kylie Minogue, right before the Queen's Speech. To make sure people tuned in to see our ad, we pretended it wasn’t one. Our media partner, ITV, helped us create tactical promos and idents, as well as reminders to view in the TV guide. We made it feel like typical broadcast programming for a Christmas Day special. It was a reminder to the UK that if they ever wanted to escape the turmoil at home, they’d always have a mate in Australia who’d welcome them with open arms.

Results: 182M digital impressions 46M online views $40M in earned media And Australia became the #1 searched holiday destination globally