Mia Fileman 0:05
This is Got Marketing? – a podcast with ideas, strategies, and tactics to help small businesses create smarter marketing. I’m Mia Fileman, a professional marketer, and the founder of Campaign del Mar. In this show, I chat with creatives and strategists about the different aspects of marketing, but without the fluff. Let’s dive in!
Hello friends! Welcome back to the Got Marketing? Podcast!
Today on the show, I have Ash Jurburg. He is a writer and content creator based in Melbourne, but prior to this, he worked in marketing for 20 years and has also owned several successful businesses. As an avid traveller, Ash has been to over 105 countries and is welcomed back in some of them.
Thank you so much for joining me, Ash!
Ash Jurburg 0:58
Thanks, Mia! Glad to be part of this great podcast!
Mia Fileman 1:01
Thank you!
Now, it’s actually a pretty interesting story. You and I have got scarily a lot in common – we both went to the same university, we’ve both been in marketing for 20 years, we both write on Medium which is how we came to meet, we’re both online course creators, and we both love talking about marketing campaigns.
Ash Jurburg 1:30
That is very scary. It’s like meeting my doppelganger. You’ve got far less grey hair than me though, so you’ve done a lot better.
Mia Fileman 1:36
Well, I am actually really proud to say that I just turned 40 and I don’t have any grey hair, so yay!
Ash Jurburg 1:45
That’s great!
Mia Fileman 1:48
I reached out to you because I thought this was going to make for such a great conversation because one of the things that you love writing about is the best marketing campaigns from last year or the best marketing campaigns from COVID. I like to do exactly the same thing.
In today’s episode, we’re going to have a little bit of fun. We’re going to play a game of Compare the Pair.
Ash Jurburg 2:14
Awesome. I love games. I’ve very competitive too.
Mia Fileman 2:17
Bring it on, friend!
What are we going to do?
Ash Jurburg 2:24
We’ve each thrown out a couple of ads in similar industries – ones that you’ve liked, ones that I’ve liked – and we’ll compare the two and see what resonated for both of us with those ads and what appealed to them. Maybe a little argument. I like some heated argument of why the ads work and why they didn’t work. Then we’ll take it from there. Hopefully, the audience can get something from it.
Mia Fileman 2:45
Amazing. Well, should we get stuck in?
Ash Jurburg 2:48
Let’s go.
Mia Fileman 2:50
The first industry that we are going to compare is going to be dating apps – matchmaking.
Ash Jurburg 2:58
Excellent. It’s like we’ll match. You share a lot in common. We might have been matched in a previous life on a dating app, but let’s have a look. We’re both not the target market for these ads which makes it even more interesting to look at them.
Mia Fileman 3:11
Correct, because we’re both in relationships, but marketers think they know everything, and we love comments from the peanut gallery, so I think we’re overqualified, really.
Ash Jurburg 3:25
Exactly. I’ll analyse any ad even if it’s a product that I’ll never use. Even if it’s targeted at babies or elderly people or anyone. Dating apps – let’s take a look.
Mia Fileman 3:35
All right.
The one that I think is absolutely brilliant is from Match.com. This is Ryan Reynolds’ dating site. They recently launched a campaign, really, to get people to start dating so that they could get married, so that the wedding industry could get back to work. A few steps in this campaign.
What they did was they pulled together quite famous wedding singers and performers. They wrote an original song. I love this because the copywriting was next-level incredible. It was very catchy. You found yourself singing it throughout the whole day. The campaign name was Let’s Get Back to Love. “We need you to get on Match.com and start dating so that it can lead to a wedding so that we can all get paid.” I believe one of the lines was “if you don’t get laid, we don’t get paid,” which is just absolutely genius.
What I really liked about this, Ash, was the fact that it actually spoke to the brand promise as well which is that Match.com as opposed to Tinder is not just for hooking up. It’s not just for the one-night stand. It is for the long-term relationship. It is for love. By cleverly linking it to weddings, they’ve been able to not only entertain and engage the audience, but also send that strong message across that, if you choose Match.com over the alternatives, this might actually end up in a long-term relationship.
Ash Jurburg 5:40
Yeah, that was what I liked best about the ad – the fact that it spoke to that, and it differentiates itself. There are plenty of other dating apps, like you said, which have that perception of being more hook-ups – Tinder, Grindr, and that sort of thing. Match positions itself as more of a serious, long-term.
I liked how it brought emotion. I’m very big on bringing emotion into any advertisements because emotion is what sells. It was about “don’t just do this for yourself; do this for all these people in the industry who’ve suffered for 18 months; do them a favour.” I really liked that it was not only to help yourself but to help the wedding industry – help these wedding singers. It gave a bit of a face and a personality to those forgotten people which was a really different angle which I liked. It’s not just, “Do it for yourself. We’re all in this together. We’re all going through COVID together.” It’s an often-used line, but I think they capitalised on that for this ad.
Mia Fileman 6:34
Exactly. That’s such a good point. That’s the other element of this that Match.com almost put their commercial priorities aside and dedicated this entire ad to supporting the wedding industry. In fact, in the credits of the campaign, they actually included the names of the wedding singers.
Ash Jurburg 7:01
Yeah, which I loved. I actually did a quick Google search to see if there’s any results of these people – these wedding singers – did they get a lot of bookings? I couldn’t find anything, but it would be very interesting to see because it’s almost like ads for them. There were ten or so. These were like personal ads for these ten wedding singers. They would surely get a lot of bookings out of it.
Mia Fileman 7:19
I think they would be booked out for years. Should we have a little listen/watch?
Ash Jurburg 7:24
I think you should give your listeners a warning first because this is very much an earworm, and it will be in their head for the rest of the day. Fair warning.
Mia Fileman 7:34
Consider yourselves warned. All right. Let’s do it.
“The chapels are empty.
No vows have been swapped.
There’s no chocolate foundations,
and the music has stopped.
It’s time that you started getting over your ex
because you’re double vaxxed, but you’re still single AF.
Now we don’t get paid if no love songs are played.
We’re totally screwed ‘til you start getting laid.
So, can you get back to love, so we can get back to life?
We really need you to meet that husband or wife (or any kind of partner)
It’s been drier than a desert, so what would it hurt?
Now, baby, tell me can you get back to love, so we can get back to work?
You can even post a picture from 2019
because we all look like hot messes getting through quarantine.
The app ain’t going to download itself,
so for once use your hands for something else,
and remember what it feels like to be felt.
So, can you get back to love, and get back real fast?
There’s only so many things that you can do in a mask.
I know you feel me.
I’m begging you to keep me from moving in with my mom,
so people tell me, can you get back to love
and get back to getting it on?
Come on, get the church bells ringing!
Come on, can’t you hear the choir?
You need a match.
You need a match,
if you’re ever going to set your heart on fire.
Get back to love!
It’s time to make those wedding plans.
Get back to love, so we can reunite the band.
Tell me, can you get back to love?
Get back to love.
Come on, get the church bells ringing!
Come on, can’t you hear the choir?
You need a match.
You need a match
if you’re ever going to set your heart on fire.
Come on, get the church bells ringing.
Come on, can’t you hear the choir?
You need a match.
You need a match.
Tell me, can you get back to love?
Get back to love.”
So good!
Ash Jurburg 10:47
Did you sing along?
Mia Fileman 10:49
In my head, yeah. I didn’t think that that would be good to put on the microphone.
I’ve watched that ten times. I love it. Every time I pick up something new, just as I was watching it this time, I thought, “This is actually a collaboration between Match.com and the wedding singers, but also themselves – fellow wedding singers as an industry.” It’s really bringing them together.
I think the key thing to take out from this example is that your marketing campaign can have lots of levers. You can pull them simultaneously. You can use clever copywriting and the power of music in marketing, but then also collaboration and also storytelling. Sometimes, more is more.
Ash Jurburg 11:45
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think that these wedding singers would necessarily get together. I don’t know if there’s a wedding singers union or if they get together at Christmas and have an annual party, but it would have been unusual for them who probably work very individually to get together and share stories and learn from each other. It would have been good with them.
I really was hoping that Adam Sandler would pop up halfway through. That was a missed opportunity. I would have loved to see that come in but, yeah, it’s great. It’s in my head again, so thank you once more for that.
Mia Fileman 12:16
You’re welcome! Seriously epic movie – The Wedding Singer. That really speaks to the fact – is there such a thing as original ideas in marketing? Or is it all just an iteration of what’s been done before?
Ash Jurburg 12:34
There’s less and less. Occasionally, something will pop out and it’s something which is really original, but the best ideas are stolen. I know Steve Jobs was very big on “I don’t invent; I just steal other people’s ideas,” and that’s what the best marketers do. They just improve, I guess.
Mia Fileman 12:50
Exactly.
We’ve spoken about this before, but the more you actually look at marketing campaigns, the more you see that there are these common threads between them that a lot of the tactics, a lot of the strategies even are reused because they work.
Ash Jurburg 13:15
Absolutely. Why invent something when you can copy or borrow? Google wasn’t the first search engine. They just took an existing product and improved on it.
Mia Fileman 13:24
Correct, yes. All right. Match.com gets my vote. What about you?
Ash Jurburg 13:30
Yeah, I went for Tinder. Actually, I missed the whole Tinder days. I was in a relationship when they got launched, so I missed out on what it would have been like to use, but that doesn’t mean I can’t analyse their marketing.
I’m very big on advertising being entertainment. That’s what I look for as a marketer and as a consumer, I guess. With the rise of Netflix and streaming platforms, it’s really hard to get your advertising content in front of people. Ads get skipped, so it has to be really entertaining and engaging for me to watch. I think Tinder – with this particular campaign – did something a bit different. They created what I would think is entertainment. They made it quite fun and interactive.
They created an event – again, during lockdown of last year, 2020 – when particularly single people were struggling because they couldn’t go out and meet others, so it was all done online, but they couldn’t meet in person. They created an event which was almost like a choose-your-own-adventure. I don’t know if you were into that as a kid. I loved them when I was a child.
Mia Fileman 14:36
Same!
Ash Jurburg 14:37
I had the whole series. You’d read it. It would say, “You get to a door. Will you open the door? Or do you run away?” “You see a dog. Do you pet the dog?” You can map out your whole adventure and there are different types of endings.
Tinder capitalised on that. They created an event which they promoted heavily. It was a three-hour event where it was a choose-your-own Tinder adventure. They filmed a variety of scenes. Tinder users would have the opportunity to choose what they would do. One example was an injured dog and an injured person lying on the ground. Who do you help- the dog or the person? A whole lot of choices like that which would go out.
What I liked about it initially was it got a whole lot of people engaged and interactive. It wasn’t just using Tinder and swiping left or right but creating a story out of it. It did have beneficial outcome. At the end of it, it would match all the people who made the exact same choices as you throughout the three hours. It would say, “Hey Mia! Ash made the exact same choice 25 times. You must have a fair bit in common. You might have the same ethics, the same way of thinking,” and it would give you those matches. It tied in entertainment with a beneficial outcome for the people using it.
Mia Fileman 15:53
Clever! You love pets, obviously, because you went and looked after the dog, and so did she, and so potentially you have that in common. Very, very clever!
Ash Jurburg 16:05
Yeah, it was great.
The other thing I like about campaigns is if they can get free publicity. This is what happened with this one. It was on the news. “Hey! This is a new interactive event.” Jimmy Fallon did a whole spiel about it on Fallon Tonight. It got so much free coverage and free PR which is the goal of any marketer. Rather than buying advertising, get other people to talk about your product. In this clip, it goes through the campaign, but it also shows you a lot of the free publicity that they got.
Mia Fileman 16:37
You are definitely speaking my language. I say this all the time to my students.
The best campaigns use a clever mix of paid, owned, and earned media.
Ash Jurburg 16:46
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 16:46
You want to make sure that your campaign is newsworthy enough that it can generate some of that earned media. Let’s listen to Tinder Swipe Night, shall we?
[INSERT URL FOR TINDER SWIPE NIGHT]
Wow! That’s really out there.
Ash Jurburg 19:06
Yeah. For people who are really into marketing, each year around May in Cannes in France, they do the Lions Award for Best Advertisements in a whole range of categories, and that won the Best Digital Campaign for 2020. The industry agreed with my take.
The other thing I like, we mentioned earlier that Tinder has this perception of being a pure hook-up type of thing and it’s very superficial because you’re just swiping literally on a photo on someone’s face of whether you think they’re attractive or not, but this goes a bit deeper because they’re sharing people that perhaps have the same mindset as you. There’s a bit more science behind it. Person A had 12 of the same responses as Person B.
You’re connecting a bit better. It also gives people a bit more to go on. Again, I haven’t used Tinder, but I’ve heard stories where it’s very “Hey! What’s up? What are you doing?” boring conversation. It gives you an icebreaker to lead into and saying, “Hey! You saved the dog. So did I! Do you have a dog? Why did you choose the dog over the person?” It creates a bit more of a connection.
Mia Fileman 20:12
Yeah, absolutely. I think that they’ve really understood the Gen Z audience which is that gamification is just everything to them. They are gamers – even men and women. Really bringing the gamification into the campaign is really, really clever.
The only issue I have with it – this is I guess absolutely nothing that Tinder should do about it, but more as a mum – I’m really concerned about how much time people are spending on their phones and spending in virtual reality. This is just taking them further down the rabbit hole. I would love for Tinder to come out and say, “Hey! These are some icebreakers that you can have in real life where you talk to a real human being.” I feel like we’re losing that skill. Now that there is this interactive adventure and the gamification of it and virtual reality and AI, I just feel like young people today are just further and further disconnected from real reality.
Ash Jurburg 21:30
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got two teenage boys who’ve been home “schooled” over the last six or seven months. That’s all they do – they game. That’s how they interact with friends.
I would say, in Tinder’s defence – and that’s a sentence I wouldn’t have thought I’d ever use – is that this was in the midst of COVID, so people were locked down and didn’t have as much opportunity to go out. You couldn’t meet someone in a coffee shop face-to-face, so it was a way around it. I don’t know if it would work as well in 2022, if people are out and about. But, yeah, I agree. People need to get off their phones and out into the real world.
At that moment in time, I think it worked. It’s the same for the Match one. I don’t know if that would work as well when weddings are fired up next year and people are going out as much. A lot of campaigns are very much at the right time. They have to be launched at the right time and may not work a year later.
Mia Fileman 22:24
Absolutely. That’s such a good point. In marketing, timing is everything.
Ash Jurburg 22:31
Yeah, and we spoke about regional. I’d be interested to see if anyone else follows this model of interactive matching of sorts. It doesn’t have to be just dating, but if any other products think, “Well, let’s try and see how else we can capitalise on what Tinder did.”
Mia Fileman 22:48
Well, it’s a really clever strategy because it’s very expensive. By using this tactic, Tinder has potentially outspent some of the competition because, if you are a not-as-well-funded matchmaking app, this would be outside your reach.
Ash Jurburg 23:10
Yeah. Tinder does seem to dominate the market. It’s almost become that word that’s used for a dating app as a verb. It’s not quite there yet, but “could you Tinder someone?” Maybe. It does definitely own that category.
Mia Fileman 23:26
It sure does. The thing that I also didn’t like—
Ash Jurburg 23:29
Two things? You’re only allowed one, I thought!
Mia Fileman 23:32
Yeah, sorry, but there was one other thing that was a bit of an eyeroll moment which was like, “This is not a campaign. This is the reinvention of Tinder.” I’m like, “No, this is the textbook definition of a campaign.” If I was literally looking for a definition of a fully integrated campaign, it would probably be this!
Ash Jurburg 23:58
Yeah. Whenever someone says, “This is not a campaign,” it’s probably the number one signal that it is a campaign.
Mia Fileman 24:03
Totally. Just a little bit of an overstatement but, otherwise, I thought it was great.
Ash Jurburg 24:12
Yeah, and it’s different. I love how two companies have taken two very different approaches but both very creative, both pieces of entertainment rather than just an advertising message which is key. The other thing with any content, you want it to be shareable. Again, we talked about getting free publicity. You want people to post it on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. I think both of these campaigns achieved that.
Mia Fileman 24:33
Absolutely. Well, anyone that’s getting married or is engaged is going to be sharing the Match.com one and saying, “Hey! Check this out! Look at these wedding singers! You could potentially book one of these.” I think you’re absolutely right.
What’s really interesting is that the Match.com campaign was three minutes long. When you and I were up and coming in the industry, it was the 30-second TVC, 15-second TVC whereas now we’re not buying TV airtime. We’re seeing these mini films or entire songs, and people are watching all the way to the end.
Ash Jurburg 25:18
Absolutely. That’s why it has to be entertainment. No one’s going to watch a regular ad – probably not even for 30 seconds, let alone three minutes, but if it’s like Match with a song or if it’s a game? The Tinder one was three hours.
Mia Fileman 25:30
Yeah, right. Exactly! So good. Well, let’s move on because we’ve got one more industry to Compare the Pair with. What have we got?
Ash Jurburg 25:41
Next up is my favourite industry because I worked in there for so long – travel and tourism. I can actually speak with a bit more of experience – not that that’s stopped me before – on this topic. I thought it’d be interesting because a country is not normally something you’d associate as a product, but anyone who works in the tourism industry – for a state or a country – has to effectively market a destination and there are various ways of doing it.
The tourism industry has probably suffered more than any other industry over the last 18 months, so I’m really interested to see how they all launch or relaunch, particularly Australia which has been closed off for 18 months. We’ve got a couple of campaigns to look at from different countries.
Mia Fileman 26:28.
Amazing. So good. I also have done some work with Northern Territory Tourism, and I’ve done a lot of work with the Northern Territory Government. This is definitely an industry that I’m really interested in. As you said, it is a huge industry and also the one that’s been hit the hardest, so they’ve had to really think on their feet. Tourism Australia has had to really shift the focus to their domestic market. We’ve seen that play out with their current campaign which is Holiday Here This Year – all aimed to us to go and explore our backyard before thinking about going abroad.
Ash Jurburg 27:15
Yeah, they actually spent a lot of money on that. They used Hamish Blake and his wife and did that big campaign earlier this year which was the first one that I’d really seen that really targeted domestic tourism. There are no other options, but even that has had to come to a screaming halt as domestic tourism has stopped. It’d be interesting to see what sort of return they got from that investment because they spent a lot of money and probably got very little return.
Mia Fileman 27:44
Yeah, but casting Hamish and Zoe was just genius because Hamish has such big appeal with both men and women, and Zoe is a goddess to all women. Just so clever, so successful in business that they are the absolute Australian power couple. Influencer marketing genius in casting them.
Ash Jurburg 28:17
Yeah, I’m actually going to contradict you here. I used to be a massive Hamish Blake fan. I used to listen to his podcast way back in 2006 when they started and used to be my running companion whenever I ran. I think he’s become oversaturated now. I was speaking about this with my partner. She’s sick to death of Hamish. When he comes up on any show, she turns it off.
Mia Fileman 28:35
Really?
Ash Jurburg 28:36
Yes, I’m wondering if he’s outlived his shelf-life at the moment. I think he’s just been in too many things. Zoe – I love because she’s not as exposed. She appeals obviously very strongly to the female market, but from a business perspective, I love what she’s done. She recently sold her company for squillions of dollars. But I’m just worried about the overexposure of Hamish.
Mia Fileman 28:59
I have young kids – seven and four. We watch Lego Masters together as a family. He is awesome as the host of Lego Masters because he’s such a goofball!
Each to their own, Ash. We can’t agree on everything. Even though we do have lots in common, there are going to be things we disagree on.
Ash Jurburg 29:23
I used to be his biggest fan. Like I said, I listened to every podcast for six or seven years, but I’ve just died right off.
Mia Fileman 29:28
All right. I have my favourite. Unfortunately, it’s not from Australia. It’s close, but it’s not. Tell me, what is your favourite tourism campaign?
Ash Jurburg 29:45
I’ve been a big fan of Tourism Australia, and I’m very loyal. I know you’ve expanded into global markets, and you’ve chosen another country, but I’ll stick with us Aussies. We’ve done it tough. The one that stood out to me the most – and they’ve done some great ads, and it’s very rare that you remember a commercial from 40 years ago, but people still remember Paul Hogan.
My partner is American. When I go over there, people still say, “Throw a shrimp on the barbie.” That’s a line that is now 40 years old and people still use that which is brilliant, so I was going to go with that, but probably half of your listeners weren’t born then, so I’m going to go with something a bit newer and someone a bit sexier – the tourism campaign they did in 2018 where they created a fake movie.
Crocodile Dundee was very, very big, particularly in the United States. This ad was purely aimed at the American market which was one of the biggest markets at that time. They created a fake movie trailer around the Son of Dundee featuring Chris Hemsworth and Danny McBride who is a well-known comedian actor over there.
They created fake trailers for 30 seconds each. Got people talking about how the new movie is coming out, and then they said, “We’re going to release the full trailer during the Super Bowl which is the most expensive advertising platform in the world. People pay millions and millions of dollars for 30-second ads during that primetime in early February in the United States. They started off running the trailer. Halfway through, it clicked that it was an ad. Danny McBride says to Chris Hemsworth, “Hang on. This is just an ad, isn’t it?” and Chris goes, “Yes.” They started talking about all the virtues of Australia. They basically trolled the whole of the United States and chose the biggest platform possible to release that.
They got over 86 million dollars in free news and free publicity out of it which is, again, something that I love. It was entertaining. It had Chris Hemsworth who is obviously appealing.
Mia Fileman 31:51
Just slightly, Ash. Just a little bit.
Ash Jurburg 31:54
Even extending into other things like IMDB which is the Internet Movie Database where all movies are ranked. It still has a page up for that Son of Dundee. For a film that hasn’t been released, it’s got an average rating of eight, so it still lives on. It just became this big extension. It was just clever for so many reasons. It was different. They trolled people on the biggest platform, and they got a whole lot of free publicity. Like I said earlier, it was entertaining which is what I like to see out of any ad.
Mia Fileman 32:24
Absolutely. Exactly. There is nothing more entertaining than a movie or a film or a mini film. I think they absolutely nailed this. I think the key thing is, if you’re going to do a stunt, you’ve got to go all in. By actually listing this as a film on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB and creating the trailer and making it look like a movie, you need to double down on your ideas.
I feel that, today, a lot of brands, especially in this cultural moment that we’re living with wanting to be politically correct and wanting to be inclusive, they’re too afraid to go all in. Doing anything half-assed is going to be much, much, much worse.
Ash Jurburg 33:21
Absolutely. They made it look like an actual movie. They had production values. They got Margot Robbie and Hugh Jackman and all these other big Australian names. The trailers were all generating 70 million views which was double any other Super Bowl advertiser. They had the heavyweights like Pepsi and Budweiser who didn’t even close to that. It did brilliantly because, like you said, they went in full.
On social media, people were retweeting. I don’t like this man at all, but Donald Trump Jr. tweeted afterwards saying, “I can’t believe we’ve been trolled. It’s not a real movie. I would still like to see it!” Judd Apatow, the famous director, came out and said, “If they really want to make a movie about this, I’ll do it.”
Mia Fileman 34:09
So good!
Ash Jurburg 34:10
They were getting a lot of clout from that. The cost of the campaign was 36 million. They generated over 86 million in the first few weeks of publicity.
Mia Fileman 34:24
Well, if there’s something that I know about tourism campaigns, it’s that Australians are actually happy for us to spend that kind of money as long as the ads are good.
Ash Jurburg 34:33
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 34:35
If it’s no good, Tourism Australia will hear about it from social media going, “What the hell is this? Why did we pay good money for this?” but this particular example – the fake movie. What’s it called?
Ash Jurburg 34:49
Son of Dundee.
Mia Fileman 34:51
Son of Dundee is very good. It’s also a throwback to the Paul Hogan – “Throw another shrimp on the barbie.” It speaks to the continuity of campaigns.
Ash Jurburg 35:05
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 35:06
Because, obviously, I teach marketing campaigns to small business owners, and they are not a small undertaking. It takes three to four months – minimum – to pull together a campaign. A lot of people are left scratching their heads whether it’s worth it. I absolutely know it is. You don’t get the same uplift. You don’t get the same result from that always-on approach to your marketing, but also coming up with a really clever and creative campaign idea means that it could potentially have longevity. You could reuse it and build on it and iterate on it in future campaigns just like Tourism Australia have done.
Ash Jurburg 35:53
I’m glad you mentioned that because that’s actually what they did. What’s crucial is the follow-up. It’s all great to have a great ad. It’s fantastic. The proof is in the pudding is obviously the results which came through.
Six or seven months later, they did a follow-up campaign which was Visit the Set of Son of Dundee where they actually pushed again their product – “Come and visit Australia. Come and see. This is where the scenes were made. Take a behind-the-scenes look at where the film was made. Come and meet Chris. Come and meet whatever.” They did a big follow-up campaign to actually bring people out. You saw the first ad. Now, come and visit the set.
Mia Fileman 36:29
Love it. Very, very clever to get another bite at the cherry from that.
Ash Jurburg 36:33
Yeah, and there’s a whole lot of statistics but the website visits and flights booked to Australia really shot up. They did get the return – not just the accolades from people like us.
Mia Fileman 36:44
That’s a really important point because sometimes we see a campaign and we’re like, “That’s so clever! That’s so creative!” It goes on to win Cannes Lion awards but doesn’t actually hit the business objectives.
Ash Jurburg 36:59
Exactly. The marketing people all sit around and toast with their champagne, but the CEO or the stakeholders aren’t as excited. I’ve been in that situation before.
Mia Fileman 37:11
Me too. So many times!
All right. Well, my pick – sorry, Aussies, but – I don’t think anyone does tourism marketing as well as New Zealand. Even the 100-percent pure tagline is genius. It is marketing genius because that is exactly the image that we have of New Zealand – the purity, the water, the rivers, the lakes, the glaciers – all of it just so spot on.
My favourite tourism marketing campaign is a fairly new one, actually. It is called Under the Social Influence. It is an example of an anti-marketing campaign. Now, I love anti-marketing campaigns. I actually recently made my own. They can be super successful because of the controversy.
Marketing needs to be memorable. Advertising works with memory structures. The more controversial you can be – within reason – the more likely that you are that people are going to remember you.
Traveling Under the Social Influence is a really clever campaign. Essentially, we’ll play the video for you, and it will be available in the show notes, but essentially the insight that drove this campaign was that people are going on holidays and they are capturing the same images and they are having the same experiences. They are having the Lonely Planet guide to a country.
What Tourism New Zealand came up with, with this campaign, was this idea of do differently. Do the country differently. Do something different. Don’t just go and take the same Instagram images that everyone else has shared and reposted millions of times. If there was ever a country that allows you to have a really bespoke experience, it is New Zealand.
They brought this to life in an incredibly humorous way with this park ranger who is chasing after travellers, trying to stop them from capturing the same selfie. He gets really upset when he finds out that someone has taken a stock standard image in a lavender farm, and he hasn’t been able to catch up with them. He feels like he wasn’t able to do his job that day.
The real message there was “I’ve seen this all before” and “do something differently.”
Now, this could seem like Tourism New Zealand are polarising the audience but, in fact, it’s the opposite. They have understood their target audience so well that they understand that the people who choose to visit New Zealand are of that mindset already. They come to New Zealand to have that unique experience. That’s what’s really clever about anti-marketing campaigns. They are basically saying, “We are not for them. We are for you.”
Ash Jurburg 40:48
Yeah, I love it. I think people are very much over the Instagram and the whole influencer type of thing, so I think it’s a very clever strategy. Being in travel, I think the people actually miss the experience because they’re so focused on trying to take that perfect Instagram picture that they’re just missing out on what’s around them which I think is part of the message that they’re getting across.
The last time I travelled, I was in Japan. There was a queue – a few hundred people in front of a particular spot – and they were all doing the exact same shot. They were waiting for hours just to get that perfect Instagram photos whereas I went off 50 metres to the right and got something better.
Yes, it’s very clever that they’re targeting the people who are very anti-influencer which is growing market.
Mia Fileman 41:32
Absolutely. I had a similar experience. There is an island in Greece off the coast of Crete that you can only access by boat. There is nothing on the island – no buildings, no shops, nothing. It is literally this pristine island. It takes some doing to get there.
Last time we went to Greece, I took the whole family. I’m Greek background. I really wanted to show my kids my homeland. We booked this boat to take us to one island to then take us onto this pristine island where there is nothing. We only had three hours there. We will probably never go back there again. You get three hours and that’s it. There were these young people with the selfie sticks. They spent almost their entire time on this island, trying to capture that perfect Instagram image rather than just being in the moment and thinking, “I’m just going to soak up this experience for what it is.”
I think that this is a great example of an insight-driven campaign.
Ash Jurburg 42:42
Absolutely.
The other thing I liked about this campaign is it’s actually asking its audience to take action, so they could post their own Instagram photos which fit in with what they wanted. Again, it’s one thing to have a really creative campaign, but it’s another to get your audience engaged and taking action which is what I think they did. There’s a competition around it. Again, I like taking the next step. Too many campaigns fall short.
Mia Fileman 43:10
So good. All right. Well, what can small business owners and start-up founders take out from all the campaigns that we’ve looked at today?
First, entertaining.
Ash Jurburg 43:22
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 43:22
Make sure that your ad captures their interest and attention and sustains it. Really think about how you could bring the entertainment value.
Two, make sure that your campaign sparks them to take action. What do you want them to do after having watched your ad? Is it to log on and use your platform? Is it to post or share or to sign up? Be really clear. Don’t ask; don’t get.
Ash Jurburg 43:55
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 43:56
What else, Ash?
Ash Jurburg 43:58
I think each of these campaigns understood their audience. You’ve got to have the insight. Know what your target customer is and what they want. Tap into that.
The other thing is to bring some sort of emotion into a campaign – something that will trigger people to buy or take action based on emotion – whether that’s loneliness, Match is capitalising on that; or whatever emotion it is. But, insights, all of these campaigns really captured. I think we spoke about they understood their audience.
Don’t create a campaign that you like based on what you want. Create it on what your audience wants.
Mia Fileman 44:37
Absolutely spot on. So good!
Thank you so much, Ash! Any other final thoughts or comments?
Ash Jurburg 44:45
I think you should get your audience to vote – Australia versus New Zealand – and see who wins.
Mia Fileman 44:50
Good idea! All right. Let’s see. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to beat that Under the Influence campaign. Sorry!
Ash Jurburg 44:59
Actually, one thing I forgot to say, the other thing that New Zealand does well is they tie into their national airline, Air New Zealand, and their safety videos. Maybe that’s a discussion for another podcast, but they tied in. They’ve done Lord of the Rings campaigns. They’ve done a whole lot of things. They extend through other national components. They use their airline which obviously features very big into the tourism campaign.
Mia Fileman 45:19
Yes, very clever! Yes, we should totally do an episode about the airline videos because I also really like the Qantas ones where they’re telling you to fasten your seatbelt, but they’re in these incredibly iconic locations across Australia, but definitely a discussion for another time.
Ash Jurburg 45:38
This actually became a whole new piece of advertising collateral. Air safety videos is one of them. It’s boring watching the air steward telling you what to do to. Here’s an opportunity to market ourselves.
Mia Fileman 45:48
It makes you feel good before you start flying which means that it enhances the customer experience.
Ash Jurburg 45:55
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 45:56
You start the flight relaxed and excited about your destination rather than “I just want to get this flight over and done with so I can get to where I’m going.” It’s very clever.
Ash Jurburg 46:07
But the other thing, the advantage for the audience is that no one watches those videos ever.
Mia Fileman 46:11
Correct.
Ash Jurburg 46:12
But here’s a way to get them to make it entertaining, and people will watch them.
Mia Fileman 46:15
Exactly. Perfect note to end on.
Thank you so much for your time, Ash! We will definitely be having you back! I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom bombs with us!
Ash Jurburg 46:27
Thanks for letting me be part of it. It’s been fantastic!
Mia Fileman 46:34
Thank you!
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