Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2016 | |

LET’S GO CAIRNS!

Advertiser: Tourism & Events Queensland
Brand: Cairns
Creative Agency: -
Credits: -

The Challenge
Tourism&EventsQueensland(TEQ) sought to boost awareness for Cairns while simultaneously promote and launch its new SilkAir-to-Cairns routes from KualaLumpur / Penang in May 2015.

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
We have no interest in what we don’t know. While much has been written about Australia’s better-known cities, information on Cairns and TheGreatBarrierReef was lacking. This left room for Cairns to differentiate from its neighbor cities, and position itself as a premium and unique holiday destination for adventure-seeking travelers. We would leverage nature-centric visuals and stories to spark excitement and curiosity, with a strong call-to-action for motivation. Newspapers, delivering high reach against our audience (70%) was the selected vehicle. With the right mix of content and relevancy, Press is a credible source of information capable of engaging our audience with stories to spark interest and curiosity.

Media Execution
Focus was on English and Chinese press to deliver quality urban audience most likely to travel to Australia. Free English daily The Sun led the campaign, supported by China Press and Kwong Wah. The Sun jacket wrap provided an impactful launch: Cairns and TheGreatBarrierReef dominated the cover, followed by detailed destination information in the centre pages. The back cover closed with SilkAir fare promotion to drive conversions. An exclusive contest in The Sun provided additional excitement, where the big prize was an all-expenses paid holiday to Cairns. Sustenance was through rotation of tactical ads with content (destination stories) within the same page across the selected Titles. Presence extended to Press websites and YouTube for additional reach and information, driving traffic to SilkAir/Cairns page for bookings.

Results and Effectiveness
From zero base, Cairns was suddenly the talk-of-town! TEQ’s travel agents reported increased enquiries for Cairns and TheGreatBarrierReef packages during the campaign period. More importantly, the SilkAir-to-Cairns route has been so popular that SilkAir has planned a 33% increase in seat capacity from May 2016 onwards.