feature: a ‘bloody’ success?

I recently read about how Tourism Australia abandoned the “So Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” campaign. Some considered the tone ‘too coarse and foul-mouthed’, apparently Canada and the UK banned it, meanwhile in Japan and China the language was deemed unfathomable, with the slogan lost in translation.

Yet, according to Nick Bryant the campaign appears to have worked.

For all the criticisms of the “Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” campaign, the latest figures show that Australia has posted the strongest tourist spending in almost a decade. Holidaymakers injected $A85 billion into this $A1 trillion economy. And this at a time when the strength of the Australian dollar has made it more expensive to come here and the environmental lobby is encouraging people to holiday closer to home.

Nonetheless, [Tourism Australia] wants a new campaign touting Australia as a “mature, inviting country”.

I wonder if what led to its abandonment is the very reason that it worked. Many of us have seen and discussed it, even here in Canada where it was supposedly banned. The controversy raised eyebrows enough to look it up, talk about whether it was or wasn’t controversial and exactly what it was about it which made people think it was. Relative to the many campaigns which go unnoticed, it actually comes as a surprise that it was banned here.

Arguably, this campaign was able to reinforce perceptions of the country and get on peoples’ radar. As far as global viral campaigns go, it seems quite the success.

I’m not sure they would’ve been able to design a better viral campaign if they tried. And the new campaigns they’re kicking around are nowhere near as compelling.

related links: “So Where the Bloody Hell Are You?“

RE-PUBLISHED FROM satelliteandco

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