Australia had one of the most devastating bushfire seasons in the summer of 2020, with South Australia being hit particularly hard. The fires had a devastating impact on local residents, as well as the environment, and threw the tourism industry into despair. People both locally, domestically and internationally were cancelling their trips. With local’s livelihoods under imminent threat we needed

to get people back to these regions and deliver much-needed tourism dollars. Quickly.

We reacted swiftly, sensitively and publicly with a heartfelt call-to-action in #BookThemOut – a fully integrated, social first campaign actively encouraging Australians to engage with the hashtag then book and visit these fire-impacted regions when it was safe to do so.

Our solution was born from two key community Insights.

The first: As people were helplessly watching bushfire footage on the news. There was an overwhelming desire to help but, other than donating to regional fire services, nobody knew how.

The second: On first inspection one might think the loss of tourism only affects hotels, restaurants and the like. But the reality was more severe. No visitors meant no business for the laundromat who washes the hotel’s sheets, the mechanic who services the wildlife tour vehicles and even the farmers who provide fresh produce to restaurants.

We knew the audience who could book and travel fastest would be local South Australians, with the rest of Australia not far behind. So we amplified traditional campaign media using primarily local strategy including partnerships with local influencers, sporting and cultural events and news media integrations including a week long Channel 9 integration.

This campaign was incepted, produced and sent live in just 10 days. We launched using online film, social media, print, OOH, and influencer, then amplified through news media, event sponsorship, and media partnerships including a full-week television special on channel 9. #BookThemOut assets were made available online and the campaign took on a life of its own. Aussies created films, plastered the message across socials, events and even their own cars and trucks.

We reached 6M people in Australia, had over 11k organic Instagram posts with the hashtag #BookThemOut, resulting in a 12.4 point uplift in #BookThemOut campaign awareness.

To convert this awareness into bookings, we ran Facebook dynamic catalogue ad units, featuring over 75 tourism businesses. As a result 151,000 leads were delivered to these businesses and crucially, bushfire affected small businesses saw an increase in leads by 239% year on year, which invigorated visitation to the regions.

#BookThemOut played a crucial part in the roadmap to recovery using a blend of brand advertising and performance media, with the aim of speaking and connecting to as many people as possible whilst driving traffic and qualified leads to South Australian tourism businesses.

The campaign achieved $8.1million in earned media with a 22.1 million reach. Website visits were up 60% at 643k with an average time on site of over 5 minutes.