Tourism Australia says: Where the Bloody Hell Are You?

[tayser]

ok, with all due respect, where the FREAKING HELL have you people been? (pardon pun)

It has never been cheaper to fly to Australia than ever before.

Before V Australia and Delta started flying across the pacific 12 months ago, an economy return ticket was ~$2500. Today? Cheap seats/sales: $1200, average price around $1600-1700.

i.e. I just priced a return trip in November YYZ-MEL-YYZ on expedia.ca and United are offering $1600CAD!

 

[jn_12]

But in comparison, I can go to Europe for far far less and see far far more. Even at that lower price point, there are still a lot more and better options for Canadians to take advantage of.

 

[jn_12]

These broad tourism ads don't include the names of things like hotels and airlines because they're created by the government, not the companies, and it would be weird for the government to pay to advertise for individual companies in the tourism industry. The idea is to make a place look like somewhere you'd want to visit, and then let you plan your own vacation.

Thanks for the education but I've worked for the Ministry of Tourism, so there's no need.
Fact is, you completely and utterly missed the point of my post above. I'm not suggesting that they should tell you about Bob's Airline or Cindy's B&B. But, if you watch the Ontario commercial and compare it to the Kentucky commercial, they're virtually interchangeable. The generic images, the poor selling of the "Ontario experience", the lack of focus on anything really uniquely Ontario is evident in most of the Ontario commercials. if "there's no place like this" why can I overlay the Ontario song over another state's ad with no one being none the wiser? Some of the ads tell you you're seeing the AGO or Kensington Market, while others don't, which means people don't have a clue what they're looking at. Not only this, but these ads aren't being shown in the US, our target market. They're doing the Ontario tourism sector no favours whatsoever.

Fact is the commercials are so generic because the sector already feels like Niagara Falls and Toronto get too much attention. There's an inherent jealousy throughout the province and so you end up with this incredibly diluted product. Ya the song is catchy, but these ads could be so much better.

 

[Hipster Duck]

All those commercials: the Ontario one, the Kentucky one and the Australia one, are lame for the same reason - they lack sex appeal.

By sex appeal, I don't mean overt expressions of sexuality; it doesn't have to look like a hip hop video with scantily clad girls shaking their ass in the camera (though maybe that can't hurt), but it has to reach those base desires of ours of having a good time by breaking free of society's norms. Where in those commercials are people getting a kick out of breaking the rules? It's not that the things the people are doing in the commercials are clichéed, it's that they are about as rebelllious as going to Sunday school. Even middle-aged men and women with children need to let loose. Every other commercial targeting any demographic group, whether it's old folks leaving the sprinkler running to have a Viagra-fueled tryst, or toy commercials for kids that identify with the thrill you get from pissing off your parents, seem to clue into this. I don't know why tourism commercials - which are supposed to sell fun, excitement and adventure - never catch on.

 

[jn_12]

NYC has a good tourism ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP0f2rO4UH8
I think it does a great job of encapsulating the New York experience. The amazing thing is that a place like New York doesn't even need an ad. It sells itself. But they were still able to come up with something that puts most places to shame.

Spacing has a good article about the New Yorker ads that the Canadian tourism sector has bought and the lack of Toronto focus despite it being our strongest urban draw: http://spacingtoronto.ca/2010/06/25/lorinc-the-city-that-dare-not-speaks-its-name/

 

[scarberiankhatru]

It does seem like a typical Ontario commercial includes images of a helmeted family riding their bikes through a park, some thirtysomethings dancing on an empty patio strung with white Christmas lights while being serenaded by a Kenny G lookalike, and a shot of smiling ethnic people selling shiny ethnic vegetables.

The Philippines commercials from the past year or so seemed effective (I think it was called something like the Awesome Philippines campaign). They were a series of extremely generic images: sunny beaches, scuba diving, tropical miscellany, frolicking young people...but who thinks of that stuff when they think of Philippines? Who thinks of the Philippines when they think of leisure travelling? I'd be more interested in seeing stuff like urban Manila or the awesome rice terraces, but maybe this sort of generic tropical appeal could work to divert crowds away from Bali or Barbados. Is a TV ad the best way to get these tourists, though? Some well placed ads in stores and newspapers and whatnot for discount flights and package deals might get more tourists-that-just-want-a-beach-to-lay-on to actually book a trip.

 

[tayser]

But in comparison, I can go to Europe for far far less and see far far more. Even at that lower price point, there are still a lot more and better options for Canadians to take advantage of.

fair point, granted. It's the same with Australia and Asia, but at some point you get sick of it - there's a much bigger world beyond the North Atlantic!

 

[that_girl_there]

Thanks for the education but I've worked for the Ministry of Tourism, so there's no need.
Fact is, you completely and utterly missed the point of my post above. I'm not suggesting that they should tell you about Bob's Airline or Cindy's B&B. But, if you watch the Ontario commercial and compare it to the Kentucky commercial, they're virtually interchangeable. The generic images, the poor selling of the "Ontario experience", the lack of focus on anything really uniquely Ontario is evident in most of the Ontario commercials. if "there's no place like this" why can I overlay the Ontario song over another state's ad with no one being none the wiser? Some of the ads tell you you're seeing the AGO or Kensington Market, while others don't, which means people don't have a clue what they're looking at. Not only this, but these ads aren't being shown in the US, our target market. They're doing the Ontario tourism sector no favours whatsoever.

Fact is the commercials are so generic because the sector already feels like Niagara Falls and Toronto get too much attention. There's an inherent jealousy throughout the province and so you end up with this incredibly diluted product. Ya the song is catchy, but these ads could be so much better.

That was needlessly rude.

A lot of the ads do have little captions indicating where the places are. And often times they're not Toronto or Niagara Falls. And there's only so much an ad can do - at some point they have to direct you to a website or something to get more info. The idea is to make places look pretty and interesting, and I think they've done a decent job at that.

It would be nice if these ads were shows outside of Ontario, like in Quebec, western Canada, and the US. But with such a huge population as Ontario has, there are benefits to showing it to Ontarians to encourage us to stay here instead of leaving the province for a vacation. There are just multiple ways of selling tourism. But I suppose you are an expert so you already know that...