The Best Job in the World

(or, Being Ahead of the Game by Thinking Outside of the Box)
by Jose Luis Pastor on February, 24, 2009

The travel bureaus of Australia and New Zealand continue to show their creativity, vision and marketing capabilities, using the latest technological communication platforms, (specially web 2.0 tools), to expose their destinations to a worldwide audience . Shortly before the huge marketing campaign designed to coincide with the launch of the Hollywood blockbuster, "Australia", the State Government and Tourism of Queensland came up with an aggressive yet original and extremely cost-effective global campaign called "The Best Job in the World".

As you very probably know, the basis for this campaign is the search for a caretaker who will spend 6 months living and exploring Hamilton Island on the amazing Great Barrier Reef, and issue reports back to the world through a blog. In addition to the geographic advantages of the position, the monthly salary is not bad either: AU$ 150,000 (Around 98,000 USD /76,000 Euros, return airfare and travel insurance included).
The successful candidate will have to demonstrate an 'adventurous attitude' coupled with a 'willingness to try new things'. He/she will live rent-free on Hamilton Island (population 5,000), the F'jewel in the crown' of the Whitsunday Islands off the Queensland coast, and look after some neighboring islands as well. Pretty nice, eh?
Described as a 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity', this position for 'Island Caretaker' is being advertised in 18 countries. Beginning on July 1, the successful applicant will have few responsibilities and can decide how best to fill their days.
The offer might sound too good to be true, but the Queensland Tourist Board insists there is no catch.

This brilliant piece of marketing, created as part of a three-year, $1.7 million marketing strategy by Tourism Queensland, is expected to generate more than $70 million worth of publicity for Queensland. But the people at Tourism Queensland know very well that a successful one-strong- first- blow action (with more than 10,000 applications from 162 countries and more than 2.3 million visiting their site) is not enough to make the strategy work. Consequential to the success of the entire concept is a strong follow-up that maintains the first action's hype

Essentially, yes, this is predominately a marketing gimmick, but it's also a genuine recruiting process and if the person who does finally "win" this contest/job interview is not charismatic and active enough to sustain public interest in the stunt, the campaign could rapidly deflate. The idea of the promotion, innovative as it is, has to meet two objectives: 1) Get the world's attention focused on the Queensland Reef (accomplished) and 2) It has to be innovative enough to make the sure winning candidate's blog sustains public interest, turning the upcoming blog into a promotional tool as effective as traditional advertising.

If readers decide to spend their precious time exploring the winner's blog, it is understood that it should have style and content, both innovative and interesting. If said winner seems to be merely wandering around the Island, documenting inconsequential moments, it surely won't sustain much interest. But if this character is able to do something arresting and new, then this strategy will maintain at least part of its energy and world media coverage.
In some way this campaign reminds me of the TV show 'The Apprentice' which, for a time, (Seasons 1 -3), I considered a master move by Donald Trump where he not only got to hire the best people available to manage one of his businesses, but also earned a lot of money in the process, thanks to re-runs, syndication, and placement in advertisement deals. The difference now is that in the short 5 years since the show's 1st season, the Internet's social networks play a larger and unavoidable role in realizing these kinds of actions to their full potential.

Enter Web 2.0. Besides the obvious online reaction through myriad blogs and discussion forums, travel and not travel related, the 'Best Job in the World' promotion relies in large part on social network tools to spread the hype. For starters, interested parties can apply by submitting a 60-second video outlining the reasons why they deserve to be picked. The embedded videos at the www.islanreefjob.com website are obviously fed by Youtube. As a matter of fact, there's an official Youtube channel dedicated to candidates' submission videos, (as well as dozens of non-official channels), with videos than range from impressive; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5C7EIPQsxA, to less than impressive; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwhfNZw4NhM&NR=1, to just plain weird; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6GrF5OLaZw, and even ones of dubious taste; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D38lEnjqPIU. I expect some of the video applicants to become the new you tube stars for at least a couple of weeks. At the same time, many of these applicants have started their own groups of "support me to win the job" in Facebook and Myspace. And if we have a look at the "applicants" page, http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/about-the-job/latest-applicants, you'll see that you're able to use Digg, MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo Buzz, Del.ico.us and virtually any other application to get feeds. In short, the viral marketing is doing most of the work of promotion as the "product" becomes the "news", with no direct intervention or further effort from Tourism Queensland.

In Latin America, most of the national travel bureaus seem to use the internet only as a business card instead of using it for its full potential. Today, Online Marketing is much more than simply optimizing your web pages' SEO. As more and more people research and book their holidays online with the help of user-generated content found on websites like Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, Facebook, You Tube, and any number of travel blogs, this should signal to Latin America Tourism bureaus (and companies) to think outside of the box in promoting their destinations. Word-of-mouth has always been the best way to advertise, and right now the Internet is like the ultimate gossip queen.

February, 2009

	About The Author
	Jose Luis Pastor, heads Global Encounters Marketing & Communications department. To know more about Jose Luis Pastor and other GE Members - Click Here