Analysis Of Great Barrier Reef's 'Best Job In The World' Essay.

Analysis and understanding of product and the target market
Undertake some secondary research in order to better understand the product and its connection with the consumers.
Consider past advertising approaches and also competitors’ campaigns.

Evaluation of strategic approach

• Is the strategy really a strategy? Or a tactic?
• Based on your interrogation of the case, is it the best strategy? Why or why not?
• Does it reflect the consumer insight?
• Is anything done well? Or could be done better?

Evaluation of strategic approach

• Is the strategy really a strategy? Or a tactic?
• Based on your interrogation of the case, is it the best strategy? Why or why not?
• Does it reflect the consumer insight?
• Is anything done well? Or could be done better?

Analysis of the Big Idea and Execution

• Does the big idea come from the strategy? And capture the consumer insight?
• How well does the execution embody the creative strategy?
 

In this report advertising campaign of Great Barrier Reefs that was launched in 2009 which created mass interest has been examined. The campaign reflected the idea “the best job in the world” as caretaker role for islands and in this report a wide analysis is presented to understand the product, target market and effectiveness of campaign followed by recommendation for improving further effectiveness.  

According to Ketter & Avraham (2012) Tourism Queensland introduced an exceptional and successful campaign in year 2009 with aim to promote Great Barrier Reef under “Best Job in the World” campaign. It was hugely appreciated and won several accolades as well as generated about 400 m AUD media exposure for Queensland in both domestic and international media.  It reached around 3 bn audiences with media exposure, received 34,684 minute video job application from across 197 nations. Also campaign was rated 8^th in international list for globally top 50 PR stunts of all time by PR firm Taylor Herring, received 8,465,280 web visits, 55,002,415 page views with average of 8.25 min time spent.  

As opined by Husain, Ghufran & Chaubey (2016) “Best Job in the World” campaign was a promotional product to enhance global awareness of Queensland’s ‘Great Barrier Reefs islands’ and was designed to give a reason to global public across the world to get engaged with destination and feel aspired to experience it. Tourism Queensland aim of this product campaign was to tap universal desire and thus they created a job that appealed too great to be real and everyone from everywhere could apply to it.   The Caretaker role was an original employment scope that gave applicants opportunity to live on Islands of Great Barrier Reef and report back experience to world and hence the campaign had been really efficacious and genuine thinking.    

As stated by Parpis (2009) the idea behind the campaign product was that island holiday destinations like Hawaii, Carribbean etc comes easily to travelers mind but the Great Barrier Reef was substantially unknow despite being a world heritage. Though travelers visit these islands for day trips but not long stays, so challenge was to build global awareness of the Great Barrier Reef islands so as to transform these day trips into international dream holidays, based on  experinces that would be like fresh storytelling. So the campaign was developed to create this awareness.  In past as visit of international travellers to Australia has deteriorated to less than 1% growth in 2006 so Toursim Australia brought forward campaign like “Where the bloody hell are you” in 2007, even after which the visitation increased by only 2% in 2007.    

Target audience

As foreign visits to Queensland was dropping so a new campaign was necessary to attract tourist interests based on which “Best Job in world” campaign was developed to generate mass awareness and give people a reason to visit the Great Barrier Reefs. The campaign was targeted to prime markets of UK which had 29% of total travellers to Great Barrier Reefs, Europe (23% visitors), US (12%), Japan (11%), Germany (9%) etc so as to improve awareness for the islands. The objective of campaign product was to compel people with a reason of an experiential idea at islands across the world, different culture and backgrounds through mass media and promotions (The Economic Times 2011).  

As target consumers for this campaign were experience seekers from around the world so to connect with them powerfully the original thinking was derived from a strong insight that people can get true experience only when they indulge and immerse themselves into something. So consumers were targeted on quality of experience they could aspire to live during their visits to islands with great value and real experiences that they could share with others on return. The idea to connect with consumers was to give them more than they seek or just view, something that they would like to do, explore and immerse into. So campaign was developed to tap heart of experience seekers, modern travellers and people who saw things on internet and felt the need to experience them (Wallace 2009).   Also to set a great degree of connect with customers the idea was that most people rate life and pleasure related to work or job, so for a satisfied life, everyone wants a job they love, so based on this thought the broader campaign was designed to appeal a universal desire.    

According to Business Wire (2009) the audiences that were targeted through Great Barrier Reef campaign were universal experience seekers that included people who are self challengers, young tourists, educational travellers who prefer technology and vacations that are immersing, wanted to explore different cities and things that were amongst these. The target audiences that were aimed were from core target markets that had high propensity to travel to Australia that included UK, Europe, US, Japan, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore etc.  

The analysis is as follows: (Black 2014).

Competitors	Strengths	Weakness
Central Amazon conservation complex (Brazil)	· One of the well off regions in context to biodiversity. It has unique species of fish, giant arapaima, river dolphins etc. Large variety of vertebrates with over 120 species of mammals, 411 birds, reptiles and 320 varieties of fishes.   · During dry season the region offer white sand beaches landscapes and in wet season it’s flooded with forests.	· High crime rate and theft · Absence of modern facilities and road access to various tourist regions · Poor developed infrastructure is limitation for tourism development of region · Nations are at distinct levels of inbound and outbound market maturity · Large distance and expensive transports
Ha long bay (Vietnam)	· The bay has around 1600 islands and islets that provides a magnificent seascape of limestone pillars · Islands are mostly uninhabited and far from human influence due to precipitous characteristics of region · The Bay has vast diversity of caves and other landforms that are derived from unusual geomorphologic procedure of marine invaded tower karst	· Lack of tourist facilities at local level like comfort stays and services · Locals do not adequate means to protect the region which has resulted to the Bay’s environmental degradation · The region does not have sufficient and standard quality of tourism and recreation infrastructure along with low accommodations · Low repeat visits in contrast to other average sights · Slow development due to policy making of tourism ministries, ASEAN · Low transport facilities and inadequate skilled workforce in tourism regions

Buyer behaviour 

Fig: Buyer behaviour of target audiences of Great Barrier Reef campaign

Source: Author

According to Dale et al. (2018) there was need to design an advertising campaign that enhanced the strong awareness idea and appeal to attract travellers towards the islands of Great Barrier Reef specifically key international travellers who would aspire for experiential dream holiday places. So an insightful and genuine thinking was required with core objectives of strategies to generate mainly awareness for a fresh and new kind of tourism brand that was set on both soft and hard targets. These objectives included mainstream media exposure that would go beyond overall investments of campaigns, new coverage in prime markets that have propensity to visit Australia such as UK, Europe, US, Japan, Germany, New Zealand etc, get travel industry recognition from travel agents, local operators and airlines. Particularly, for campaign activity the target response strategies were to attract mass number of job application for position of caretaker of islands, expose specific content of island and regional tourism destinations to become viral in public and using social media content and consumer focused content over and beyond applicant videos through illustrations over blogs, social sites and web 2.0 portals.

Competitor analysis

According to Business Monitor International (2017) the challenges that were faced by campaign when it was launched had several key concerns surrounding environment and timing of launch which included pending State elections, because as Tourism Queensland is government agency so it developed some instability as to timing and government response towards campaign. Second was financial crisis during 2008-09 which was on peak and was influencing heavily over tourism, airlines and travel operators. Thus due to economic slump down global spending of consumers towards travel and leisure was reducing which created uncertainty and cynicism. Moreover both “Australia’ campaign and movie that were launched has not reported considerable implications on global market so a new campaign idea was challenge during such difficult environment scenarios. So to appeal consumer insight and overcome the issue of advertising campaigns of past the new Great Barrier Reef campaign was a head on solution strategy for one of the best places across the world. As such campaign was intentionally and fully developed to create awareness and appeal; as they were directly attributed to campaign where travel visits could be stimulated with exploiting adventure and experience seeking ideas. 

The campaign was the best strategic approach as it tapped global desire by creating an appealing dream job which sounded good and genuine idea as most people look to work in place and on jobs they love and which are well paid. The role of Island Caretaker as promoted in campaign was an original employment opportunity for anyone from anywhere who would get to live the experience on Great Barrier Reefs islands and share those back to others. According to Stephens, Oppermann, Turnour, Brewer & O'Brien (2015) the campaign that was launched was appealing and effective to catch interest of people and was positioned as a good news story to hold the best job in the world that appeared in mass news coverage and media exposure. So the campaign successfully drove traffic to their website within a small budget of 1 mn USD that efficaciously appealed mass social media and mainstream media coverage. The campaign stimulated and captured consumer interest at two levels i.e. being a primary source of motivation with job application and interesting salary and benefits on offer for applicants, second campaign was engaging, had inspirational story about the Great Barrier Reef islands and their adventure experiences. 

The campaign sufficiently appealed psychographics insights of consumers based on personality, value and lifestyle (VALS) approach where artistic and experience seeking target consumers were targeted who are sensitive to natural habitats that surrounds them. The good thing about campaign was it efficaciously attracted people who are: (Barut, Raar & Azim 2016).

Buyer behavior

Thinkers: these include practical and logical decision making people who are responsible and resourceful and are mostly well informed about things around the world, accepting to new thinking and are concerned of social changes. As such Best job in world campaign had impacted thinkers who reflect interest towards the environment that surrounds them.     

Achievers: these include people who are successful and satisfied with their job and family, inspired by achievements and prefer established products/ services that reflect success. So the campaign successfully appealed achievers interest as these people got chance to reveal to their peers their contributions towards environment and social causes.   

Experiencers: these include young, enthusiastic and high resource individuals who are self expressed and inspired, indulge actively in sports, social activities and are avid consumers of indulgent activities like adventure, new experiences etc.  The campaign appealed enthusiastic experincers with the idea of dream life or job as caretaker of islands. 

The strategy was focused on communication to build mass awareness towards the island of Great Barrier Reef’s with an innovative and simple campaign that was promoted across classified ads, job listings, viral social ads, banner ads strategically to target markets with direct people appeal.  

According to Singh, Dash & Vashko (2016) ‘The Best Job in the world campaign’ of Tourism Queensland has been a hugely successful campaign ever that reached global mass with modern media formats and created a significant high volume of responses. People across the world created videos, blogs to respond their passion and creativity to apply for the dream job that was projected in campaign.   The overall measureable results of quantifiable strengths of campaign includes worldwide media coverage in all formats from CNN, BBC to Times Magazines articles with projected media coverage valued at more than 110 m USD. Also campaign rated 8^th in international list of best PR promotions.  Other direct responses were 34,684 video job applications received with over 450,000 votes for wild card applications. Moreover around 7,591,106 visits were reported to website, 51,990,061 page views and 8.37 min average time spent in110 days. 

According to Parpis, E. (2009) connect to social media and consumer generated content was high as around 231,355 Goggle blogs were searched for campaign, Facebook received 371,126 visits which was highest connect to social media after Google and Yahoo. The video of islands of the Great Barrier Reefs received over 300,000 YouTube visits and rated 22^nd Most Viewed Video (All time) in Travel and Events category Australia.  

Evaluation of strategic approaches

Based on the idea of campaign The Great Barrier Reef can be promoted as ecotourism destination by positioning these islands with uniqueness of identity of landscape which is spellbinding and intoxicating. The idea of Reef can be promoted as nature’s gift to mankind so that more tourists can be attracted to witness its beauty and experiences to nurture this wonderful island and unfold its intricate and fragile characteristics which are once in lifetime experience. Travellers, community and travel operators can be directly involved in positioning of the islands amongst target consumers to make this landscape unique with mesmerising visitor stories, sharing of experiences etc. 

Conclusion 

Thus from analysis it could be inferred that “Best job in the world” campaign of Great Barrier Reef was a highly effective campaign of Tourism Queensland based on original idea to generate mass awareness for the islands with use of modern ICT tools like social media, blogs as well as mass media coverage for global markets.  The campaign generated mass reach to all people across the world with extensive media exposure and changed the landscape of tourism promotions as the advertisement included lot of innovation, creativity, skills, learning’s and positive implication on society. Moreover the campaign clearly demonstrated integrated advertising efficaciousness by reflecting strategic insights, brilliant ideas and its execution across both conventional and modern media to create huge effect.  

References  

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Business Wire (2009). Home of 'the best job in the world,' Hamilton island switches to SynXis and sees immediate results. Business Wire Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/443942975?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 24 Oct. 2018]

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